Micheal Phelps is on the Corn Flakes box.
Not the Wheaties box.
Wheaties, the Breakfast of Champions, was outbid by Kellogg’s for one of the most popular people in the world. But don’t you worry about Wheaties, the competing cereal signed gymnast Nastia Liukin and decathlete Brian Clay.
Do you believe that Micheal Phelps is sensing animosity from the health food crowd because he signed on with Kellogg’s to promote Corn Flakes and Frosted Flakes, questioned a recent Trendhunter article.
In a recent Adage article, an insert read, “”As an official sponsor of the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team, it is only fitting that…
For a business built on creativity, agency thinking can be pretty uncreative; we staff up when we win business and staff down when we lose it. Besides being an incredibly demoralizing process for everyone, this crazy job rollercoaster runs completely counter to the challenge of finding, hiring and nurturing creative talent.
I recently read about an agency in Atlanta called the SuperGroup who came up with a much better — and much more creative — solution to layoffs. Instead of letting people go when business is slow, they encourage their creatives to pursue their own creative endeavors. Employees were told that as…
I was listening to one of my podcasts this morning as I drove to a client’s office for a meeting. The discussion involved adding huge LED screens to Times Square for additional ad space. As a marketing professional, my thoughts on this are torn. First of all, the moderator and interviewee were giving props that bigger advertising space translates to more attention and how advertisers would be fighting over buying up the space. I nodded my head somewhat in agreement, but a bigger part of me (my eco-chic side) thought of a recent debate in Miami over sign pollution, which…
I’ve been without my laptop for over a week because of a catastrophic failure with my hard drive. I ordered a new one and have spent the last six hours installing the operating system and tracking down updates, software and tools that I used every day. I’m half way there at this point. It has definitely been a lesson in not knowing what you’ve got till it’s gone.
So, what have I learned. Two things.
1. Back up regularly. Thank goodness, I backed up everything two days before the crash.
2. IT staff don’t get enough respect. I have a new appreciation for…
ZDNET is reporting that the Securities and Exchange Commission provided unanimous approval today for corporations to use Corporate Blogs as a means to release information that meets public disclosure requirements.
I don’t know that you’ll see many corporation taking advantage of this medium but there are some who have successful corporate blogs that could use this to provide information to the public. In those instances, there is the opportunity for unique conversation to develop around content usually reserved for faxed releases and obscure postings. This can position a corporate blog in a whole new way for some brands.
It’s additional proof that Social Media…
I’m a big fan of the CommonCraft videos. CommonCraft has established itself as a unique communications organization that brands come to for help to explain the features and benefits of their products. The video below is for LinkedIn. They asked CommonCraft to take the assumption that LinkedIn is about building connections and turn it on it’s side to explain how it can make you more productive. Using a simple two minute video, CommonCraft has helped LinkedIn to explain how it can expand the role it plays in our everyday lives.
Can your brand communicate in such a simple way to help people…
Chrysler is looking to make some major changes. The Wall Street Journal reports that Chrysler is currently scrambling to cut costs by forming alliances with companies across the globe. In India, they are in talks with Tata to build Jeeps. The struggling car maker is also in talks with Fiat about a possible factory lease deal. All this is in addition to down-sizing their workforce. In the U.S. Chrysler sales have fallen by 22% so far this year.
There is some good news for the company. Chrysler, GM and Nissan were ranked as some of the most visible auto makers online. Internet…
Usually you hear about new or recently developed social applications being all the rage and surrounded by lots of buzz, and then the brand trickles down to the average Joe and Jane as indispensible at some point.
However, Twitter is not enjoying this kind of success.
The site frequently has been riddled with technical problems, which has third-party developers abandoning ship. The developer community is predicting that once developers go, users won’t be far behind.
This may not shake and break the brand of a social app that is indispensible, but Twitter seems superfluous–you can do the same things it does for you…
The Muppets seem to be staging a comeback. In an effort to promote an upcoming Disney Channel special, several of our Muppet friends have set up their own YouTube channels. Beeker gets it going with a nice rendition of Ode to Joy. This is an interesting approach to revive the Muppet brand and bring back the variety show approach that brought the show success in the past.
Disney is once again putting their marketing force behind something and finding new ways to integrate the old and the new. The YouTube campaign is an interesting way to use a new medium to revive a brand that…
This spot has made the rounds and may have appeared here on Beneath the Brand once before, but I can’t help but share it again. It’s a spoof on the agency process and the difficulty that is experienced with clients. The sad thing about this parody…it’s so true.
Many of my fellow BTB bloggers also post their thoughts on various other sites, some have their own (www.stevenstark.net) and some are part of other communities (www.deepsouthmoms.com). What I think is so interesting is that there is a blog for everyone and everything out there. And if there’s not, you can very simply create your own.
My father just recently got into the act with a blog for a convention he’ll be speaking at. If you’re in the association world, then you’ve probably heard of ASAE (American Society of Association Executives). Every year they have a big conference for the association crew,…
I know what you are thinking—companies still have Intranet sites? The answer is yes, they do and that is a good thing. Intranet sites are a great source of information sharing between companies and employees. I, personally, find it to be a “green” way to accomplish what mounds of memos and forms used to in the “olden days.” Take a moment to think about the topics covered on an Intranet site:
- Human Resources: From downloading a self-help direct deposit form to finding out who to contact with an employee issue. Payroll, benefits and training are all items taken care of in…
GoDaddy.com is sharing that the launch of the .ME domain name was one of the most successful domain name launches in history with over over 20,000 .ME domain names registered the first day. Mashable reports that the launch was riddled with technical issues due to a rush of attempted registrations for names that might fetch a premium price down the road like Aweso.me
From a branding standpoint, I’m sure there are a handful of unique opportunities to identify, register and market with a .ME domain but is the world really in the mood for all of the useless .ME domain names that are…
In a move to generate interest for the word of mouth medium, BzzAgent is offering a guarantee that their campaigns will outperform traditional media by 20%. The catch is that an advertiser must spend at least $300,000 on a campaign with BzzAgent using word of mouth and other media. An independent third part vendor will be involved with the measurement to help support the offer.
One of the challenges related to social media and tactics like word of mouth is measurement and what is considered success. It’s difficult to measure conversation and more so to translate that conversation into sales. It seems…
In the slow season, believe it or not there is a slow season, at Starbucks, the company recently announced they will be offering samplings of summer beverages to increase traffic throughout the summer season.
These sampling events have been in progress in Atlanta, Boston, Detroit, Indianapolis, New York, Philadelphia and Washington for a few weeks and consumers are getting free small iced coffees on specific days with some restrictions. Is this a good marketing strategy or simply a way to boost sales?
Another summer promotion from Starbucks, that has a different twist on it throughout the country, is the offering a cold…
Squidward: Will you let go of that stupid pizza already!!!
SpongeBob Squarepants: No! I can’t. It’s for the customer.
Squidward: Who cares about the pizza??!!!!
SpongeBob: I do!!!
Squidward: SpongeBob, let go of the pizza!!!
SpongeBob: No! It’s for the customer.
In a time when customer service is mediocre at best, I think a simple solution should be to sit your employees down and have them watch the SpongeBob Squarepants episode, “Pizza Delivery.” The message is plain, simple and to the point: Deliver what you promise to your customer and do so with great enthusiasm all while wearing a smile (even if you are tucked…
Over the weekend, I went with some old friends from college to eat at this little “hole in the wall” seafood restaurant in St. Augustine. When I say St. Augustine, I say that loosely because the address may technically be St. Augustine but the restaurant is in the middle of nowhere, with nothing around it for miles. It sits on a portion of the St. John’s River that has extremely black, dark water and alligators. When you first drive up to the place, the parking lot is packed, which is always a good sign for a restaurant, but the building itself looks like a shack.…
Many companies have created a blog for employees to collaborate and share ideas. In fact, these types of blogs have replaced those “reply all” emails that clog up everyone’s email inbox. The outcome of companies that use blogs - the employees are more productive!Advantages to internal blogs:
- Easy way to tell a story. Whether the story is a new product update or a change in policy, in 10 minutes (sometimes less and sometimes more) management can have it posted on a blog for all to see.
- Collaboration. Employees can read posts from fellow employees and management, post replies to the posts and…
Good logo design is like good writing. When it’s done properly, it looks effortless. This doesn’t mean that designing logos is easy. It just looks that way.
When designers create a new logo, they typically walk away from their design and look at it at a later time so they can see it with fresh eyes. The following real world logos could have benefited from following this simple rule.
Technorati Tags: Good logo design
Since 2005, when podcasting really started to take off, IBM has been driving this bandwagon with internal podcasts for its employees. IBM has recognized the importance of taking care of its employees so the employees take care of IBM (internal marketing to its employees). And IBM’s podcasts have nothing to do with the launch of a new product either. Its podcasts cover issues such as working mothers and interviews with the IBM executives so employees can get to know their fearless leaders. More importantly than the fearless leaders, the podcasts feature other employees, like the scientists, talking about normal life like…
