Nike’s Loyalty to Tiger Woods Pays Off

Ad Age posted an article recently about Tiger Woods and his effect on Nike.  Everyone knows the story of his scandal, so no need to go into that, but they decided to take another approach.  Some of his top sponsorship deals for companies, Gatorade, AT&T, and Accenture felt his scandal would be disastrous for their image.  They decided to cut bait and drop Tiger from as a sponsor.  Others such as Nike, EA Sports, NetJets, and TLC Laser Eye Centers have decided to keep him on board but limiting his role for the time being.

Some questioned whether keeping him on board as a sponsor would hurt Continue reading

Google Editions: Coming Soon?

Google may soon be testing the waters in digital publishing with their bookstore Google Editions.  Some expected the bookstore to hit the ground running during the summer months but Google had some fine tuning to do.  They didn’t want to release this new sector of the company without having everything thoroughly planned out.  Many believe they have a tough battle ahead of them with Apple and Amazon owning a great deal of the market share in the field.

Google Editions does come with a twist Continue reading

Ctrus, Soccer’s New Smart Ball

The newly designed smart soccer ball, Ctrus, took home this year’s Red Dot concept award.  Designed by the Mexican studio, Agent, the concept was created to reduce referee errors, which have been a problem for years in the sport, as well as providing fans and team managers a new perspective.

Ctrus, has the ability to Continue reading

A World of Tweets

Have you ever wondered how many people were tweeting right this very second? What about now? Frog Design recently launched a site showing Twitter activity all over the world. Seems like it would be pretty busy huh?

Their new site shows the activity with a heat map based on activity all over the world. As you watch the map over a course of several minutes you can see the hot spots for twitter. It seems that the US, Europe, and Indonesia are clearly the tweet addicts. The site also shows statistics Continue reading

Google Goggles: Seeing into the Future of Marketing

google goggles, marketingAlmost a year ago Google launched Google Goggles, an app for mobile users that allows them to instantly find more information about something simply by taking a picture of it. People have been using this device to look up information on text, landmarks, books, artwork, logos, and contact information.

It is a very interesting concept but now Google is taking it a step further. Google is performing their own marketing experiment with 5 brands, Buick, Delta Airlines, Diageo, Disney and T-Mobile. Continue reading

Awesomely Bad Commercials

We’ve all seen them before, commercials that are so bad they actually catch your attention.  It may not be the best strategy or even a good one, but for some they are doing the best with what they’ve got.  It seems that lawyers, mortgage companies, and local doctors have a knack for the worst commercials out there.  At Asylum.com they’ve posted their top 10 worst lawyer commercials but the one for Greenstein & Milbauer, LLP seems to be at the top of the list.  Their practice targets victims from accidents and they figure what better way to represent this than an animated squirrel.   He seems to be popular enough that they’ve used him in several of their other commercials as well.

Let us know what you think.  What are some of the worst commercials that you’ve seen?

“There’s a Soldier in All of Us”

call of dutyCall of Duty: Black Ops is one of the hottest video games coming out on the market just before the holiday season.  Wal-Mart, GameStop and other suppliers are opening at midnight tonight when the game will first be released to the public in the US. The game will be released for PS3, Xbox, and Wii and is widely known for the online play.

I’m not sure if you were watching any of the commercials during the football games yesterday but the commercial for Call of Duty: Black Ops was quite unique. This may have been the first ever Continue reading

How your Common Sense is hurting your Marketing Sense

Little Caesars Slogan MarketingThere was a great article posted this week on Ad Age by Al Ries that really hits a point most people do not understand about marketing.  That point is the difference between common sense and marketing sense.  While both are crucial to business operations, you cannot run your operation without one or the other.

Everyone remembers the “Pizza, Pizza” slogan of the 90’s used by Little Caesars, but what most people don’t know is where they are today.  They are virtually invisible.  Ranking as the second largest pizza chain in 1994, they are now sitting in 4th well behind the current leaders Pizza Hut, Domino’s, and Papa John’s.

What happened to Little Caesars is simple. Continue reading