Because I'm looking for work right now, I need to explain what it is that I do in plain terms. It can be difficult to do. Brands may not know they need a strategic content plan for the social space. Hence, their agency doesn't know it either. That's why my elevator pitch has to be perfectly in tune every time. Here it is: Stop pitching so much and start talking. When you "talk" you share common interests. That's what …
Please Go Away (For A Day)
The Portland Egotist is alive and kicking. So don't look here, look there. By the end of the day, there will be a collection of 10 posts about Portland's perfect climate for creative pursuits. …
Crazy Baldheads Exported
Hey, I know. Let's get consumers to humiliate themselves on our behalf! According to The New York Times, that's what Air New Zealand marketing execs were thinking when they commissioned 30 "cranial billboards," made with henna on newly shaved heads. Maybe that's why it's called buzz marketing. For shaving their noggins and displaying the ad copy for two weeks in November, the hairless ones received either a …
Doctors Look To YouTube To Boost Sales
Recently, I completed a series of videos to help a friend of mine promote his book. The videos have gotten him other publicity and also garnered an uptick in book sales. Today's New York Times reports that doctors are also using YouTube--and giving discounts to patients for an endorsement: Last year, Cynthia Goodstein was struggling to figure out how to pay for a face-lift. During a consultation with Dr. Payman …
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Drop The Lingo And Make Something Great
Joseph Jaffe, author of Join the Conversation, writing in Adweek, offers some good advice. The movie Rounders contains a life lesson: "When sitting down at the poker table, look around for the sucker. If you don't recognize the sucker, get up and leave, because the sucker is you." Along the same lines, the next time you sit down at a planning table to discuss something viral, look for the moron leading the project …
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WOM Is Booming
According to Ad Age, word-of-mouth spending has increased from $76 million in 2001 to $981 million in 2006 and is expected to grow to approximately $3.7 billion by 2011. Still, the discipline accounted for just 0.4% of the share in the $254 billion marketing-services category, a grouping that includes direct marketing, branded entertainment and public relations, among others. If PQ Media's analysis is correct, …