Location-Based Services: Foursquare and Beer Apps for St. Patrick's Day

I’ve been a frequent user of Foursquare check-in function. Actually there’re many research have done to find out people’s motivations to use Foursquare. The research showed that people might check in for a)badges and fun, b)keeping in connection with their friends, c)finding a good tip about the place or discovering a new place, d)recording the places where they have been to. I would definitely agree that all these motivations have played a certain role in formulating my behavior of using Foursquare to check-in.

I also found there have been many location-based apps coming out at a certain time for different occasions or festivals during a year. Like for Saint Patrick’s Day, we have beer apps (10 Best Beer Apps for St. Patrick’s Day) which could help pinpoint nearby brews, show the map to go there and also help you find the way back home after the drinking day. It’s a good and innovative idea to combine retailers with location-based apps. But when I check out some of those apps, I found there have been few local retailers in Lansing area who are active on those apps. It might be too new a trend for retailers to catch up.

I believe location-based services are offering new opportunities to marketers in mobile commerce. It's also a good chance for retailers to build enduring relationships with their consumers through using location-based services.

From Advertising System Structure to My Future Job

I just realized that advertising system is such a huge system:

I could work for an ad agency, either a full-service agency, or a specialist, or a boutique, or in-house!

If I am not to work for an ad agency, I might work for an advertiser, who is the one who pay to advertise. That's a big range -- from food industry to household suppliers, or even the government who is absolutely not going to pay to advertise in my home country.

Then, if I don't feel like working for the advertiser, I could work for the media, where most of the money for advertising is spent. Media is a tremendous party of newspaper, television, radio, magazines, and all kinds of new media which are based on digital technology like computer technology.

What else can I work for? Manufacturers, retailers, research group, control institutions, etc. Plenty!

Suddenly I feel so bright about my future career...

A Bright Idea of Advertising to Both Elders and Children

When our class talked about advertising to elders and children today, I just can't help thinking of that hilarious 2012 Super Bowl commercial of Doritos called Sling Baby.
It seems to be a problem that "older people are often absent from mass media - when present, subjected to stereotypes".
It's also a problem that children are vulnerable consumers nevertheless valuable to marketers.
However, this "Sling Baby" commercial, which combines the elders and children - two vulnerable groups of consumers, seems to handle the problems of advertising to older people and children so well. I am definitely amused by the cute baby as well as the cute granny. I would guess besides children, older people would like to go for Doritos after watching this commercial!

Check it out:

Inherent Risks That Social Media Brings to Marketing

People in social media could be any professions like a musician, a writer, a doctor, a journalist or an expert in certain area, therefore, how a potential community member would respond to the content could be various and uncertain, also, how much credence of the response could be given by marketers is hard to ascertain.

Another risk in social media is the issues of control and ownership caused by Mashups, which could combine data from more than one source into a single integrated tool, for example, adding location information from Google Maps to real-estate data from Craigslist. Thus, nobody has complete control over social media contents, even the individual who created the content could not control how the content would be used by others.

Different Perspectives About Kony 2012

It's the comments and debates about the video of Kony 2012 made it go viral:

‘KONY 2012′ Tops 100 Million Views, Becomes the Most Viral Video in History [STUDY]

Joseph Kony: What You Should Know The story behind the man behind the viral video.

Food Campaign on Pinterest

If one day you feel like opening your own food business, you might think this useful:
     8 Best Practices for Food Brands on Pinterest

--It's not only about pinning your food on the web, but also--more importantly--getting people engaged and involved in your campaign, by a contest or anything else that might be attractive to pinners.

Two Habits to Keep Creative

Inspired by the interview of Francisco De La Torre-Rocha, I decided to develop these two habits:

"When I find something interesting, I either bookmark it, take a picture of it or simply write it down in my idea book."

-- I used to have a tiny notebook to take notes of my inspirations. I should buy a new one for drawing or scribbling, and writing down interesting things that inspire me or might inspire me.

"I have developed my own automatic tools to refresh myself every morning. As soon as I wake up and have my first coffee in the morning at 7am, it all starts with a quick visit to my own blog. I have designed that site to automatically update itself using custom RSS scripts that seek content 10-14 times a day with ideas from many creative/ideas websites such as Trend Hunter, We Make Money Not Art, et cetera. I have also linked up my blog to automatically update my Facebook and Twitter updates, so they are always updated with fresh creative content that helps me stay freshly creative. "

-- I have done half of the work--the form. I need to focus more on the other half--the content--to keep myself on the cutting edge.