Monday, April 30, 2012

Fighting Like Jordan

I may not be able to update this blog for the following 4 months. But before I turn to my Chinese blog, I would share a commercial with you in this post.

The "Maybe" commercial is for Jordan starring with Michael Jordan. I think they did a great job in the ad copy, which could be an encouragement for us to move on in our way.

Anyway, in this summer, let's fight like this NBA star to achieve what we want!


Sunday, April 29, 2012

How Could Social Media Go Further

Social media is an evolving and cutting-edge field.

Firstly, information on social media spread so fast. After Knicks' Jeremy Lin has dominated on Twitter for multiple days, Twitter breaks news of Whitney Houston's death, which has spread fast and widely among Internet users. And the tragic news on Twitter was broken twenty-seven minutes before mainstream media. We could see social media competes against traditional media in its speed of breaking and spreading of the news.

The use of mobile phones makes the steps of social media even further. Information could reach mobile users wherever they are. That's why all kinds of social media services currently are developing their mobile marketing. In this year's Super Bowel, Shazam was a big winner. Apart from recognizing a song, it provided the service of tagging commercials by marketers including Acura, Best Buy, Bud Light, Disney, Honda, Pepsi Toyota and so on during the game. This is not only a smart campaign for Shazam, but also a revolution to make TV commercials more interactive. Another example of combing social media with mobile advertising should be Facebook's new move. After Facebook's IPO filing highlighted their lack of mobile advertising to day, recent news reported that Facebook would tune up Bango, which "provides many kinds of mobile payments and analytics services". The SoLoMo media convergence, which integrates social, local and mobile, actually predicts a new era of media has come.



Saturday, April 28, 2012

Efforts to Feed My Blog into Other Sites


During my efforts to pull my blog feed into external sites, Twitterfeed did a great help. Other similar apps are Tweetscan, Tweetbeep, Twitteroo and so on. Instead of manually sharing the post when there's an update, Twitterfeed automatically pulls posts from my blog to my other accounts like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. One amazing thing is that Twitterfeed works for Facebook page too, so that the notification of my new post of blog would only appear on the newly created Facebook page instead of on my personal account.

However, Twitterfeed still doesn't work for Google plus. I tried to find another way to import RSS feed to my Google plus page, but in vain. And the discussion online showed that there was no service to feed an RSS feed into the Google plus stream currently. Users could use the API to integrate the app or website with Google plus and Google+ API only allows us to read people's stream not write things into it yet. So what I could do was sharing the link of my blog on my Google plus page. That's not a quite smart way. But fortunately I do find by linking Google plus profile with my blogger account, thus my blog updates could be sent to selected circles on my Google plus account easily.

Friday, April 27, 2012

Sth about Viral Stuff

Due to the growing number of social networking websites and increasing use of video sharing, viral videos have gained a rapid popularity. According to Purcell (2010), 69 percent of adult Internet users have watched or downloaded videos via the Internet and among those who watch videos online, the percentage of people who share videos have jumped to 61 percent in June 2009 from 33 percent in December 2006. The increasing popularity of video sharing has attracted attention of ad agencies; they started to add viral videos to their marketing strategies.

Viral video is within the field of viral advertising, which delivers persuasive messages with an aim of motivating the spread of messages via peer-to-peer communication. Many research on viral ads attempt to find the factors that make a viral campaign successful and make people want to forward the viral message. Millward Brown has unveiled four factors acounting for the success of viral ads-the awareness index, buzz, celebrity and distinctiveness and demonstrated the characteristics that made people would like to talk about an ad and forward the "virus" to their friends included Laugh out loud funny, Edgy, Gripping and Sexy, which are short as LEGS. I humbly think that making it go viral should always be a topic of new marketing strategies.


Thursday, April 26, 2012

3 Ways How Web Changed the Rules of Marketing and PR

Here are several points that impress me most about how the web changed the rules of marketing and PR:

From Traditional Media to New Media:

Following the change of media, the rules of marketing and PR changes. It's a trend that companies are turning from traditional media like TV to new media based on the web. Investment on TV advertisement is huge so that some companies cut off their budget on TV advertisement but invest on web-based marketing campaigns. Social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter provide a good platform for marketers because of their large user base. Examples:



Set the Target:

A big change web has brought to marketing and PR is that the new rules have more targeted consumers. Backing to the old rules within the media like TV or newspapers, they have a wide but dispersive range of audiences. However, the new web-based marketing rules focus their efforts to attract and keep the attention of the targeted groups, which saves money as well as resources.

Relationship management:

The old rules of marketing and PR seems to be one-way interruption, in which consumers could only acting as the role of passive receiver. Within the new rules, the consumers take more participation. Since the web connect marketers and consumers, consumers could actively express what they need and how they evaluate the product or the service. Moreover, marketers even need to discover their customers' need before they say it out. Therefore, the web helps build a two-way relationship between marketers and consumers.

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Coca-Cola Blade Roller by David Fincher


You don't want to miss "the first TV commercial in the permanent collection at the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York City":

Coca-Cola Blade Roller(1993), directed by David Fincher for Coca-Cola Japan.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Social Media vs. Traditional Media Marketing Campaign

a. Campaign contents in social media are often available for retrieval to look them at later dates, but retrieval of information in traditional media is much harder.

b. Social media provides a two-way conversation between marketer and their targeted consumers, who are just seen as passive receivers in traditional media.

c. Marketing campaign in social media could be modified or corrected continuously according to feedback and comments, while in traditional media, the content could not be changed once it’s delivered to the public.

d. The popularity of a social media marketing campaign could be evaluated in real time based on their site visit, comment left or membership growth. However, statistics on popularity of a traditional media marketing campaign are often with a slower or lagging speed.

Monday, April 23, 2012

The Uniqueness of Google AdWords and Google AdSense

Here I would like to explain the uniqueness of Google AdWords system and Google AdSense system.

Google AdWords system

Google AdWords system allows users to purchase space on Google’s search result pages to publish their ads. Without a Google sales representative, Advertisers bid on specific search keywords or phrases.

Google AdWords is special because users could choose when and where their ads would appear and they also have a control on their investment as there’s little minimal investment. By combing their ads with some specific key words or phrases, their ads would only be displayed to people who already have a big potential to be interested in their product or service. Moreover, users just need to pay for clicks on those ads. This Cost Per Click (CPC) model would guarantee a high Return On Investment (ROI).

How much the advertiser bid for the search keyword would have an influence on whether their ads will show up on Google’s search result page of that particular keyword. But that’s not the only factor. Google also calculates the Quality Score of that advertisement, which would also influence whether an ad would be placed higher or lower. A higher score suggests a higher tendency of generating clicks and popularity among users, thus the ad is tended to receive an elevated placement. Actually the disobeying of the regular rule -- “pay more and you are the winner”, demonstrates Google’s higher socialist tendencies over other advertising models, as well as their focus on users by giving them a vote on the ads’ placement.

Google AdSense system

Google AdSense is a system which provides a channel to anyone who owes a website or a blog to add advertising space to their own sites. If a website owner subscribes to AdSense, their website will be given an access to Google’s huge network of advertisers and Google would help it manage the placement of ads which are relevant and targeted to the contents of the web pages.

The idea of Google AdSense system is so original and unique as it provides web users a chance to earn extra money from what they already have -- their own web contents. And they don’t need to be professional in advertising or marketing. All they need to do is to update contents on their website as usual and make it more appealing so that more people would come to visit their website and there will be more probabilities of clicks on the related ads, which suggests more money they would make from those clicks.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Why Google AdWords & Google AdSense Provide Effective Advertising

Here I have a brief analysis about how Google's philosophical design for Google AdWords and Google AdSense is unified with the their belief about the criteria of effective advertising:

a. Google AdWords only displays ads related to your search words and Google AdSense displays ads related to the web content. Ads provided by both of the two programs are nothing like irrelevant pop-up ads which suddenly show up when you browse web pages. They usually take limited spaces and are displayed as static words, which would not interrupt you unless you feel interested and click on those ads. So we think AdWords and AdSense provide a non-interruptive user experience.

b. AdWords is designed as a mechanism through which ads will only be shown on the search result page for the search of some specific key words or phrases. The design for AdSense is also consumer-targeted by delivering relevant ads that target to the site’s content or audience. So both AdWords and AdSense provide targeted advertisements for users.

c. Through AdWords, ads would only be shown to users who are already interested in some certain product categories. For example, if a web user searches “swimwear”, there will be ads of swimwear on his search result page which he might probably think it useful. For AdSense, there is a match between the web content and the ads provided. For example, in a website about travelling, some ads of trip planning or hotel booking might be useful to consumers. So basically AdWords and AdSense are useful to consumers as they are precisely targeted.

d. Google uses a Cost Per Click (CPC) model for both AdWords and AdSense, in which advertisers just need to pay for every click on their ads instead of the impressions. This model guarantees advertisers a high return on investment, without wasting money on useless impressions. Additionally, both of the two programs have made efforts in reducing the influence of click fraud on the results. Therefore, AdWords and AdSense demonstrate accountability in terms of results.

e. The process of creating an ad using AdWords is not complicated. The user chooses a keyword to bid on and write a short ad copy for the link. In terms of AdSense, you just need to sign up for the program and set up your personalized ads. Users don’t need professional knowledge in advertising or marketing to make use of these two programs. So both of the two programs are easy-to-use for consumers.

Saturday, April 21, 2012

3 Ideas about How AT&T Could Evolve to Meet the Changes

I must say AT&T has such a "general" market. It has no specific segmentation for a certain group of people. My suggestion to AT&T is line extension by "adding individual offerings that appeal to different market segments while remaining closely related to the existing product line". For example, they could build lines for students and businessmen exclusively with different levels in price and services. 

Moreover, among all those carriers that apply 4G mobile broadband, AT&T is not that competitive in 4G technology, speed, coverage, plans and devices. With Verizon having the fastest 4G speed and T-mobile having the largest 4G network, the price and service that AT&T provide are not that attractive to users. AT&T is facing a fierce battle in the future 4G market. (4G Comparison [Infographic] | 2011 Review)

AT&T was rated the worst wireless provider both in 2010 and 2011 by Consumer Reports. A recent presentation by Gregg Heard, who is the VP-brand identity and design for AT&T, told us that AT&T's new strategy is to win consumer love. They would evolve their original "Rethink possible" slogan to focusing on human experience.
Read this news: AT&T's Strategy to Win Consumer Love: Be Human
We will see what their next move is.

Friday, April 20, 2012

P&G's "Thank you, Mom" Campaign for London 2012 Olympic Games


How is P&G connected with Olymplcs? These two things sound so irrelevant.

The new P&G commercial features all moms of those athletes. It honors every little thing mothers do for their children, like cooking, washing clothes, dish washing, etc. It is those little things that make their children achieve progress while growing up. And P&G proclaims that being a mother is the hardest job in the world, but also the best job.

P&G's idea of this "Thank you, Mom" campaign is very smart to successfully involve their brands of consumer products to London 2012 Olympic Games. And the campaign also does a good job in its execution. With the same idea presented in various editions in different countries, this campaign has been able to spread their "thanking mom" idea worldwide.


Thursday, April 19, 2012

Samuel L Jackson and Zooey Deschanel Commercial for iPhone 4s


Check out new commercials for iPhone 4s starring with Samuel L Jackson and Zooey Deschanel. Just wondering why Apple use stars in their commercials now. This is quite abnormal!

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

"Thanks Steve" Creator's New Design for Coca-Cola


You probably have seen this "Thanks Steve" logo which recreated the Apple logo. It was designed by Jonathan Mak Long, a then 19-year-old college student from Hong Kong.

His talent got the attention of Ogilvy China. And recently he created this new design for Coca-Cola, which now could be seen on bus shelters in Shanghai. Using a similar concept with the Steve Jobs apple-bite logo and embedding a topic of "sharing a coke", this succinct design is part of Coca-Cola's global "Open Happiness" campaign.


Relevant news on Ad Age:

Hong Kong Student Behind Steve Jobs Tribute Creates Coke Image

Facebook of Jonathan Mak Long

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Coca Cola's Hug Machine Opens Happiness

Vending machines have feelings too?

Yes!

Using a hug, instead of money, you will get a coke!

Check out Coca Cola's new "open happiness" campaign in Singapore:


Monday, April 16, 2012

Presentation for Roxy's New Digital Strategy

Firstly I would have a brief introduction about Roxy. Roxy mainly targets young people and their niche market is surfing, snowboarding, swimwear and other extreme sports, in which their brand has faced a tough competition with other brands that sell similar products. To attract young customers, Roxy uses various media outlets, including Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and blog.

Here I would like to propose some new digital marketing strategies for Roxy, which include social media strategy, online advertising, and mobile marketing. For social media, I would suggest them build a profile on Pinterest because of their visual appealing feature. Also, Roxy could upload some teaching videos of surfing, snowboarding and swimming on Youtube or hold a contest asking consumers to upload their own videos related with Roxy. For online advertising, I proposed a Google AdWords campaign. Some keywords I suggest for Roxy are surfing, snowboard, swimwear and X-sports. The ad copy could be “Find your Roxy-style suit for surfing, snowboarding, swimwear and X-sports!” or "Wear like a Roxy girl: surfing, snowboarding, swimwear and X-sports." For mobile marketing, I suggest Roxy build an app for their brand, providing information about their product, advertisement, promotion, events, blogs, etc.

To evaluate success of those strategies, we could count the amount of Pinterest or Youtube followers, use Google Analytics to collect some data, and count app downloads. I propose a $50,000 budget for these strategies, with $24,000 for Google AdWords campaign, $1000 for the reward of Youtube contest winner, and $25,000 for app development.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

How to Track Social Media Success Metrics

I had little idea about metrics of social media campaign success before I happened to read this resource one of my classmates provided:

Before read it, all I know is counting followers or subscribers on those social media profiles. This article really provides me some new insights about tracking social media success metrics, like the Daily Story Feedback Chart, Klout, PostRank, "share of voice" report, Google Insights, inbound links, etc. Now I know there do exist some ways to measure social media success, I would try to use them like I'm already a real marketer.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Do You Need a Wedding Website?

Just read an interesting article: 7 Reasons Why You Need a Wedding Website.

It seems that more and more of us have a need for a digital wedding. Besides the wedding app I have mentioned in one of my previous posts, now we have wedding websites too! Maybe those wedding companies could take digital business into their next move.

Friday, April 13, 2012

Impressive GRid 70 Showcase

GRid 70 (Grand Rapids innovation and design at 70 lonia) is one big surprise for me during today's Grand Rapids showcase trip. What they do is to "put creative professionals from different industries together", including companies like Meijer, Amway, Steelcase, Wolverine, etc. By creating an open space for creative personels from those companies, such as all of them, to "collaborate and create", they're looking for more inspirations to produce more new ideas.

It's quite a fresh concept for me. You can't hide in your own space to think about an idea. What people do now is more like team-work and to communicate with other people is important. It's also to my surprise that they have offices in Shanghai. Can't wait to check it out!

BTW, I'm really impressed by their working environment. Posters are on every wall even in the kitchen to provide some inspirations. Another glad thing is that I encountered the wall poster for Holstee firsthand, which calls for living your dream and sharing your passion. Really love it!




Thursday, April 12, 2012

An Example to Show Uncommon Causes for Cause-Related Marketing

Haagen-Dazs's 'Help The Honey Bee' campaign shows how cause-related marketing should make use of uncommon and localized causes. It's very smart to avoid choosing usual causes to which people might be immune. 


Wednesday, April 11, 2012

3 Ideas About “Boundaries of Acceptability” for Advertising in China

Firstly, advertising in China should obey the Advertisement Law of the People’s Republic of China. For example, the advertisement should not use claims of relative superiority by one brand over another, or carry information of racial, religious or sex discrimination, or harm the social public interests, etc. Any advertising that violates the law is not acceptable in China.

Besides those explicit prohibitions of the law, the advertising would not be accepted in China if it shows violations of or disrespect to Chinese customs or social values either in an explicit or implicit way as Chinese people are so proud of and would like to defend their customs and culture. Whether it is disrespectful might be hard to define under some circumstances, but it’s better and safer if advertisers in China do not take risks of testing people’s thresholds of perception towards those subliminal and potentially offensive messages made either unwittingly or intentionally.

In addition to social values, advertisers in China need to be careful to avoid challenging the nationalism among people. Because of the country’s culture and history, its people display a strong nationalist sensibility. The ads which are conflicted with those people’s nationalist sensibility would attract their particular resentment. The confliction is not only demonstrated in the content of the ads, but also in the choice of spokesmen or endorsers. An example of this is that Sharon Stone’s unpitiful speech about the disastrous earthquake happened in China infuriated Chinese people, which made Christian Dior drop her ads in China. Advertising in China should know how to deal with nationalism. Smart advertisers would make use of it to invoke positive nationalism to appeal to Chinese customers rather than negative feelings which will arouse dislikes and even boycotts of their products and brands.

Tuesday, April 10, 2012

3 New Ideas for Roxy's Social Media Strategy

Here I have some new ideas for Roxy’s social media strategy.

As a big feature of Roxy’s products is that they’re visually appealing, I would suggest them build a profile on Pinterest, a vision-based social bookmarking website which consists of pictures and videos. The company could build boards to pin their products and advertisements. Also, they could encourage their customers to pin the photos of themselves wearing Roxy products while surfing, snowboarding, swimming, or other sports activities.

Additionally, Roxy now already has built their own Youtube channel with nearly 10 thousand subscribers. Most of the contents are commercials, and contests of surfing or snowboarding that they sponsor. I think they could make and upload some teaching videos to show people how to be good at those extreme sports. The purpose of uploading such videos is not to advertise for their products, but appeal to their existing or potential customers by creating contents they are interested in which could lead them to make progresses in these areas with the guide from Roxy, which would be a use of content marketing.

I also think Roxy could make use of Youtube in a more interactive way. For example, Roxy could hold a campaign on Youtube, asking consumers to upload their videos of surfing, snowboarding and swimming, with products of Roxy used in these videos. The person who gets the most views and “likes” would get a reward from the company and his video would be put on Roxy’s official Youtube channel.

Monday, April 9, 2012

Roxy – Google AdWords Campaign Brief


To Roxy Staff:

I would like to suggest a Google AdWords campaign for your company. Here I outlined and analyzed the current situation of your company and what online advertising especially Google AdWords could do for your company. Thanks so much for your time and you’re very welcome to provide your suggestions to make improvements on this campaign.

Sincerely,

Lu Zhang



Roxy – Google AdWords Campaign Brief

Current Situation:

Roxy has been a brand mainly targeting young people and their niche marketing includes surfing, snowboarding, swimwear or some other extreme sports, in which they face a tough competition with other brands that sell similar products. Roxy has been trying to create their brand image as “fun and alive, naturally beautiful, daring and confident”.

Considering that the main demographic for Roxy are youth, the group of people who drive social media actively, I highly agree that it’s a smart strategy for Roxy to make huge efforts on social media. And actually Roxy has been so successful in that department. It built its Facebook page with 1.9 million followers. Their Youtube channel has also been updating frequently and has nearly 10 thousand subscribers.

Campaign Proposal:

Roxy has utilized those free social networks to their full potential and they should keep maintaining this positive relationship with its targeting consumers on social media. And here I would suggest that Roxy spend a small percentage of budgets into Google AdWords, which could act as their SEM (social engine marketing) campaign to achieve a high presence online through online advertising.

Benefits of Google AdWords:

The great advantage of Google Adwords is that by combing your ads with some specific key words or phrases, your ads could only be displayed to people who already have a big potential to be interested in your product or service. Moreover, you just need to pay for those who click the ad. This PPC (pay per click) model would guarantee you a high ROI (return on investment). Google Adwords is special because you could choose when and where your ads would appear and you also have a control on your investment as there’s no minimal investment.

Keywords Suggestion:

To help determine the keywords which could represent the company and describe the products they offer, Google AdWords provides a free keyword tool. Based on a consideration of both the frequency of being searched and the strength of competence for that word, I would suggest keywords like surfing, snowboard, swimwear and X-sports for Roxy.

Sample Ad Copy:

The ad copy could be “Find your Roxy-style suit for surfing, snowboarding, swimwear and X-sports!” or "Wear like a Roxy girl: surfing, snowboarding, swimwear and X-sports."

Measure Effectiveness:

To measure the effectiveness of Google Adwords, Roxy could use Google Analytics, which could provide information and data of the website traffic and the related marketing campaign. We could analyze those different keywords and find out which keywords attract most traffic to the site and which keywords are expensive and ineffective, accordingly we could adjust our campaign. Also, the CTR (click through rate) of each keyword is an important parameter to measure.


Sunday, April 8, 2012

Easter Social Media Blitz

LDS Church plans unprecedented Easter social media blitz

Read this piece of news. It seems that we have a website which is sponsored by Mormon.org and created specifically for Easter weekend now. It means that you could join the conversation and talk about your feelings towards Jesus on Easter. Not only the website, they also make use of social media tools like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc.

I also found another video on Youtube uploaded one year ago. It told the story of Easter if social media had existed around the time that Jesus died:

Saturday, April 7, 2012

Project Glasses: Google Is Not A "One Trick Pony"


It looks like Google is expected to promote its "Project Glasses" - augmented reality glasses which will stream information that provide more convenience to your life.

One of my instructor, Michal Lorenc once asked us a question:

How does Google's attempts in various fields fit into Google's core products and it's philosophy? Is Google a "One Trick Pony" that really is only good in Search and should stick to it, or is it an innovation hub that should continue to create and push new products, services and technologies.

My opinion is, I don't understand if the company has the innovation, creativity and ability to make the world different and better, why should it just stick to search. After all, the mission of Google is to organize the world's information. But information is not only about search. Google has proven to expand the concept of information and change the behavior of people. For years, Google has been always an innovator dealing with all kinds of information, if it's not evil, why stop it?

Friday, April 6, 2012

My Observations About McDonald's Advertising In China

McDonald's ads in China have similar things with those in the US:

a) Like ad campaigns in the US, McDonald’s ad campaigns in China would have a high focus on its “happy meal” spirit, focusing on the happiness of eating at McDonald’s with either families or friends.

b) The people in McDonald’s commercials are always young, energetic, and have a good shape even though they eat so much fast food.

c) McDonald’s in both countries would create commercials targeting children specifically by using animation and toys.

d) Actually their children-targeting ad campaigns have been criticized to have misled children’s eating behavior in both countries.


They also have something different:

a) Different from ad campaigns in the US, McDonald’s in China would emphasize Chinese cultures or spirits that Chinese people value so much, like sharing with others, competing for paying the bill, collectivism, and nationalism, while individualism or self-centered are seldom used.

b) Localized celebrities that Chinese people know and like would be used in McDonald’s ad campaigns in China.

c) Some traditional customs or mascot would be used in these ads.

d) Also, they would create ads for a specific traditional Chinese festival, especially Spring Festival, which is the biggest festival celebrated in China.


And here are my suggestions to McDonald's ads in China:

a) Any information which is presented to consumers and advertises for the health and nutrition of their food should be fact-based. McDonald’s ads should not mislead people especially children who would easily believe the food is so healthy and nutritious that it’s the right thing to eat much fast food.

b) My personal feelings towards McDonald’s ad campaigns in China are that they do have a great focus on Chinese values and spirits. But compared to most ad campaigns in the US, I think they need more creativity and fresh ideas. Most of the commercials make you smile, but not a big laugh. Hence, I would suggest McDonald’s in China make more funny and creative commercials.

c) Moreover, McDonald’s in China could make more efforts on the diversity of ad categories, like expanding from TV commercials to outdoor billboards, event sponsorship, interactive campaigns, etc.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

McDonald's Localized Advertising In China

Use of Localized Celebrities:

     Mcdull - An animated pig well-known in southern China

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TJbLuu3Hek



Incorporating Chinese Cultural Values: 

     100% manly BigMac

     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnLVMOVYoLg

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Titanic 3D Crashes Into Social Media

100 years ago when the Titanic accident occurred, there was no social media.

15 years ago when I went to the theater to watch the movie of Titanic, I believe I didn't know social media at that time.

In this year - 2012, when Titanic 3D is released, marketers create social media marketing for the movie and I, use social media to express my thoughts as soon as the 3-hour movie ended.

How time flies!
The most amazing thing about Titanic is that good stories always create good memories whether with social media or not.


Resources for you:

Website of Titanic:

http://www.titanicmovie.com/#/home

Watch Titanic 3D London Premiere online:

http://www.live.titanicredcarpet.com/

Check out this article:

How ‘Titanic 3D’ Will Have an Awesomely Social Premiere [EXCLUSIVE]

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

A Start to Know Content Marketing

It's nice when every day there's something fresh to you, and those fresh things have a connection with what happened to you yesterday.

When I got to know better about what content marketing is, I realized that what virgin mobile USA was doing with Virgin Mobile Live and Virgin Mobile Festival mentioned in my post of yesterday. Yep, that's a good example of content marketing. Not advertising for their own products, they appeal to their existing or potential customers by creating musical information with high qualities. In this way, they mix music and marketing to position their brand with music lovers!

See this infographic (I love infographics!) of a brief history of content marketing with a lot of examples:


A great post about content marketing:


Monday, April 2, 2012

Social Media Efforts of Virgin Mobile USA

When I was doing the case of Virgin Mobile USA, I found it really has a huge focus on social media. That's quite understandable if you know this brand targets exclusively youth market in America and their advertising budget is so low in the whole cellular industry. But I'm still surprised about their huge efforts in social media. Not only for their official website, they also built various social media profile for Virgin Mobile Live and Virgin Mobile Fest - their featured musical app and musical festival. In addition, you could enjoy those live musical shows on their Youtube channel.

You might have noticed the word - music. Yep! Quite appealing to young people, right? It just reminds me of M-zone in China, which is a sub-brand of China Mobile. M-zone focuses on youth consumers too especially students and it also featured its musical services.

Let's check out Virgin Mobile's social media efforts:







 ......

Sunday, April 1, 2012

Social Media Marketing: A New Way to Sell The Hunger Games

Check out the social media campaign for The Hunger Games executed by This Moment:

How A Startup Powered Hunger Games Into A Global Social Phenomenon - A Money Machine

First of all, I didn't see this movie yet, so I could not judge the movie itself. But thants to the social media, the movie does make a buzz online. I kinda of think this case really proves that the time of "good product sells itself" has gone. Marketing tactics are quite needed to sell a product even though the product itself is good enough. In this information age when people are exposed to overloaded information, it's hard for a good product to stand out just by itself. But if with social media and word-of-mouth, once it creates a buzz, it might be a huge success. Or, social media marketing might have the magic to sell a not-that-good product to the world too.

Saturday, March 31, 2012

4 Lessons From TEDxMSU













1. Open your mind. Show your smile. Find more positive things, rather than the negative ones.
2. You could speak English with an excellent accent even if you're not a native speaker.
3. To be a glocal(=global+local) citizen.
4. Discover the hero in your mind. Speak for those who are silent.

Friday, March 30, 2012

A Brief Analysis of Roxy‘s Social Media Marketing Strategy

Since Roxy is a fashion brand mainly targeting youth, it would be a smart strategy to invest on social media that most of young people frequently use. And actually that is what Roxy has done. Roxy has built its Facebook page (1.9 million followers now, while last week was 1.1 million), Twitter profile (20 thousand followers), and Youtube channel (10 thousand subscribers). All these profiles are not static pages. By communicating with their followers directly on these media and frequently updating news and videos of new products and activities or competitions of surfing and snowboarding, Roxy has built a close connection with its targeting consumers on social media.

Roxy also updated its official blog on its official website every day. Adaptive to its fun and alive, naturally beautiful, daring and confident brand image, their blog is quite visual appealing with bright colors and lively pictures. I personally think the “temperament” of its blog is very suitable to its targeting niche market including surfing, snowboarding, swimwear or some other extreme sports.

Not only does Roxy utilize those free social networks and official websites to maintain a positive relationship with its targeting markets, but also they convey a message that Roxy is more than a cool clothing brand, but a lifestyle that people probably live too. While Roxy has be quite successful in its social media marketing, I would suggest them build campaigns on Pinterest too, whose visual features would quite fit for Roxy’s brand image.






Thursday, March 29, 2012

Do Subliminal Messages Have Huge Powers?

Derren Brown is a master of mind control. Just share two videos of his tricks of our mind here. You could see the huge power of subliminal messages. These videos are really hard to believe. Actually you could see many people posted their suspicion in the comment box of Youtube. By myself, I still have some doubt about the execution of these two experiments. If you feel interested, you could find more similar ones on Youtube as Derren Brown has made series of such experiments.

Check them out:




Wednesday, March 28, 2012

Hidden Tricks in Logo Designing

Have you noticed the hidden message after you saw the logo of FedEx for hundreds of times? The arrow stands for the fast speed and precision. I have no idea about the meaning of the spoon. Perhaps it's just a coincidence.  Lindon Leader, the designer of the logo called the subtle arrow a "hidden bonus": if people get the punch line, it's good; but if not, it will not reduce the communication power of the logo.

Check out the interview with the logo designer: The Man Behind the FedEx Logo


I also found some other interesting logos that hid messages behind. I'd like to share them here:






Don't get them or want more? Go to:

Do you think those subtle information hidden in the logos will work? I'll share more about subliminal marketing in my next post.

To be continued...

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Glengarry Glen Ross Teaches You How to Sell


The leading role in this "Glengarry Glen Ross - Put That Coffee Down" video describes the process of personal selling by personal examples as well as verbal instruction:

The man in this video yielded to get others' attention with lots of dirty talk, threatened to get their interest, disdained to arouse their desire, and shouted "always be closing", which would finally make people act.

----This is absolutely not a normal way that salesperson dare to use to their targeted customers, but the general concept of AIDI that the video emphasizes does work. Sales process in our daily life normally follows the AIDI concept - attention, interest, desire, and action. No one would deny the video is a successful example of how to sell.

Monday, March 26, 2012

3 Ways to Experience Infographics

Would you prefer reading a whole-text or an infographic? I would totally go for an infographic! It's summative,visual and entertaining. I mean, a huge amount of data is boring, but with graphics, they're not.

If you want to see some awesome infographics, you could:
     Check out my board of Infographic on Pinterest.
     Visit this site: Daily Infographic. An infographic a day.

If you want to create your own infographic, here are some ways:
     Find & Make Your Own Infographics With Visual.ly
     10 Awesome Free Tools To Make Infographics

At last, try the app of 'What about me?', which provides an infographic of your life by connecting to your Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube profile. I am soooooo surprised to find that among all those divisions, the most of me is science (16%), followed by tech (15%), food (15%), and study (15%)!





Sunday, March 25, 2012

Wedding+App? Wedding App!


Have you ever thought about creating an app just for your wedding?

Unbelievable!

Janet & Timmy is a wedding app made for Janet Chow & Timmy Hung, who are one of the famous celebrities in Hong Kong. They spent 200,000 RMB, which is more than 30,000$, producing this tailor-made app.

The app includes their love story, wedding invitation, wedding photos, and location-based services. Some of the contents like the wedding tour and guest list could only be seen with passwords provided for relatives and friends.

That must be a cool and innovative idea of wedding. But I'm wondering whether some hackers would like to take this challenge. Plus, this app could be kept for just one year. Does it worth it? Well, if only you are happy with it, just do it!




Saturday, March 24, 2012

Have Fun with "Draw Something"

Haha, just be addicted to "Draw Something" today.

Some funny things happened to us, who are easy to mix up some similar words, like Jessica drew a puppet while the word actually was "puppy", Vic took "ballet" as "ballot"...Lol, plus our bad sketching, it makes our guessing even harder! And usually we would use some words hint with the sketch. Maybe this app should change their name as "write sth"!

Laugh at our drawing:



Look at some fantastic drawings:
Draw Something: 20 Amazing Smartphone Sketches


Friday, March 23, 2012

Funeral - Share An Impressive Commercial From Singapore


This ad is really touching. At the funeral of her husband, the lady didn't speak highly of her husband, but told some little imperfect stories about him. You may think it funny that what she missed so much was his snore. But in the end, she told us it is those little imperfections make our life perfect. Maybe that's what family is about - to find a life partner who is beautifully imperfect to you.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Building Connections with Whom You Are Selling to

I read a story illustrating salesmanship which was about Sir Francis Younghusband's first trial of climbing Mt. Everest. When he sought permission of climbing the mountain from the Tibetan side from the then ruling Lama, the Lama was surprised why this Englishman wanted to do that. Guess how Sir Francis explained it to the Lama? He told the Lama that he was from a sect whose Gods could only be worshipped on the top of mountains. The Lama took this explaination easily as it was quite understandable for religious people.

That might be an example of personal selling which suggests building connections with your customers. But it works for nonpersonal selling too, such as advertising, public relation, sales promotion, etc. Get to know your targeted customers, and build a relationship with them - that's what customer relationship marketing is asking for. If we expand this point to our daily life, doesn't it work for other human relationships too, like friendship, marriage, or family?

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Talking From "Sex, Death, and Subliminal Advertising"



My marketing teacher showed the video of Sex, Death, and Subliminal Advertising to us in class. The video itself is like a magic, taking us to a magical world of advertising by uncovering so much hidden information within ads around us. But when I first saw it, I doubt these subliminal messages work on people. I mean, if I can't even recognize the hidden information, how can I be affected by them? 

But today I read a chapter about subliminal advertising in a book. It says that many research help to answer a question -  "Can we perceive something that we are not aware of consciously, and can it affect us?" This question may help advertisers decide the effectiveness of subliminal appeals. Actually a popular argument about subliminal message is that the audience is affected by them unconsciously without noticing them consciously.  

I agree with the statement that different persons have different thresholds of perception. Also I think subliminal advertising would work on those who could perceive it and even with a stronger effect on them than regular advertising. But the answer of how many people could perceive it is a X. That's why I think using subliminal advertising is a risk to some extent.

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

A Hilarious Campaign of Columbia: Great Moments in Trying Stuff Series

Have you ever thought about putting your waterproof coat on a cat or using the shoe as a drain maker to get food drained? Unimaginable! Columbia has made a series of Great Moments in Trying Stuff videos which I think are all full of fun! It's quite a smart tactic to discover some unintended uses of your products and then make hilarious videos to market your products to consumers.

Check them out:

Monday, March 19, 2012

Check Out My Board of Ad Campaign on Pinterest

Remember in one of my previous posts: Board of Ad Campaign on Pinterest, I declared that I would start to pin amazing ad campaigns? The good news is that I've went over all these 100 Captivating Ogilvy Campaigns and here comes the result of my efforts combining Pinterest with advertising campaigns - board of Ad Campaign


It has been a habit that I watched four campaigns each day and pinned them to my Ad Campaign board so that I could share them with my friends on Facebook and my followers on Pinterest. And some of those ad campaigns could get "likes" or "repins" from other users while others not although they're really creative and fantastic campaigns. Actually I found that pics which were over exaggerated or sexually appealing would be easy to get repins. The reason might be that Pinterest is a social bookmarking website based on pictures. People on Pinterest are exposed to so many pictures that they could not have enough time or energy to pay attention to the content of every picture. Therefore, they would firstly be absorbed by the "looking" of a picture which stands for the ad campaign,and then got started to notice the content of the ad campaign itself. 

Anyway, I would keep on pinning captivating campaigns onto Pinterest. As a student majoring in advertising, I think this habit would keep me on the cutting edge of this area and provide me with a creative perspective toward various things.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

10 Guidelines To Be A Mad Man With Plots [Video]


I just read the article by David Dunne - Being a Mad Man Without Losing the Plot, which provides 10 guidelines to help evaluate advertising. I'm trying to list the examples that he mentioned in a video form, thus making the article more visually appealing:

The advertising campaign must be--

1. noticeable (Diamond Shreddies campaign)



2. insight-based (Never Stop Milk campaign of the Prairie Milk Marketing Partnership)



3. memorable (1984 Apple's Macintosh)


4. branded (Dove Evolution)


5. 'campaignable' (Nescafe)
  
    negative example: Molson Canada - rant


6. differentiated (Dockers' Nice Pants campaign)


7. motivating (Got Milk/Deprivation campaign of the California Milk Processor Board)



     Since the 'shock' campaign was forced to end because of its unethicity, I coul only find this new controvertial 'unhate' campaign which features kissing of world learder.


9. financially sustainable (Talk to Chuck campaign by Charles Schwab)


10. integrated (Doritos' 2009 Become the Doritos Guru campaign)

     In the Doritos Guru campaign, consumers could win a prize of $25,000 by naming a new flavor for Doritos and making a commercial of it by themselfves. Apart from a YouTube channel, they also built a Facebook Fan page and devoted to other online advertising including display ads.

   Scream Cheese - Doritos Guru Winner:


--These 10 qualities above would provide us "a systematic way of thinking" about ad campaigns, thus helping us evaluate whether the advertising is effective and worthwhile.