Are you lovin’ McDonald’s 24-year promo campaign?

11/01/2010 | admin

For 24 years now, McDonald’s has used one of the most popular promotional games that will always seem to get people excited. This genius marketing idea lures people in with the chance of winning cash prizes, cars, vacations, gift certificates, as well as free food. It is extremely rare to see a promotional contest last this many years but I have a feeling this one is here to stay. Over the past few years the prizes have been getting larger and larger with the top prize being $1 million. This has only added to the hype as you can see advertisements about the monopoly game on TV, billboards, and hear them on the radio.

Students at the University of Michigan have gotten involved as they created their own blog about their McDonald’s Monopoly experience. They have vowed to keep track of their game pieces and statistics based on the winning percentages of each item they purchase. They want to find out if the more expensive items have a greater chance of winning as well as testing McDonald’s claim that one in four wins. Bargaineering, a personal finance blog, has even posted tips on how to win with the McDonald’s Monopoly game.

What is most exciting for the players is the vast amount of prizes offered by the game. McDonald’s has teamed up with EA Sports, Wal-Mart, Ford, Beaches Resorts, and several other companies to offer a wide variety of prizes in the U.S. The contest ends today, so if you’re looking to get that $1 Million top prize good luck. Although, the guys at University of Michigan say the cheapest item you can get a game piece on is a 24 cent medium water…happy hunting.

What cool things can HTML5 do?

10/25/2010 | admin

Arcade Fire, an indie rock band based out of Canada, teamed up with Google to create an interactive music video online for their song “We Used to Wait.” The video titled “The Wilderness Downtown” is a new idea which has spawned a few similar interactive videos from other musicians as it appears Arcade Fire may have started a new trend. The video displays some of the capabilities of HTML5 as well as Google’s web browser Chrome.

Before the video begins you are asked to enter your address of the home where you grew up and after doing this the video will begin. Multiple windows will popup and they are all used in the interactive video as it takes you through images of your old home to recreate the experience of your childhood. Multiple images and video run without skipping a beat as you experience the video. At the end of the video you will get to create a postcard writing to your younger-self with the idea of giving yourself advice already knowing what you will have gone through.

Arcade Fire plans to use the postcards in several different ways to keep their fans engaged as they tour across North America. After watching this video I had to try several different addresses just to see how cool it really was. Is this the new age of music videos? What do you think?

World’s most awesomely bad Halloween costumes

10/14/2010 | admin

Alright, so I’m sure we’ve all seen our share of amazingly unabashed people sporting some pretty horribly awesome costumes this time of year. But today we found the motherload. I am honored and excited to introduce you to… WTFcostumes.com.

This site will literally offer you hours of entertainment. The best thing since PeopleOfWalmart.com! It’s a compilation of the most ridiculous Halloween costumes people have come up with. The greatest part is that many, if not most of them are very much homemade costumes.

Be warned, though, some are a bit disturbing – other just way out of control. Seriously, who sits around and comes up with these costume ideas? We thank you!

Our prediction for the hottest costume this year……. Old Spice Guy!

Who do you think you’ll see most often this Halloween night??

Google Instant “shields us” with pre-emptive censoring

09/29/2010 | admin

Now don’t get offended!

That’s what Google is trying to prevent from happening with Google Instant. It’s an understandable concern – who wants to be bombarded with, let’s say “work-inappropriate” images and content accidentally when you’re searching for something much less scandalous? That could be embarrassing.

It all works based on algorithms of the billion+ Google searches people do every day. They go through these searches and figure out if the results seem pornographic, violent or hateful. If they do, then voila – the search term is blacklisted from instant search.

And of course, just because certain search terms are banned from Google Instant doesn’t mean you can’t pull them up on a regular search query. You’re going to have to go through the hard work of hitting the ENTER key, just like in the old days. Google just refuses to read your mind and suggest a term that has been deemed naughty.

Here’s the full list of search terms banned from Google Instant.

It’s a fine line that Google is treading right here – a line between freedom of speech and information, and protecting us (or, as Google reps say, it’s meant to safeguard children) from the obscene. Any kind of censorship is always controversial. Google Instant has brought us a new realm of controversy.

What do you think? Should Google Instant keep adding to the black list, or should they mind their own business?

Habits I’ve stolen from highly successful people

09/15/2010 | admin

Yesterday was a mini blast from my past.

My old communications professors invited me to come back to university and speak to the freshman class of Business Communication majors – an enthusiastic but somewhat shy group of bright eyed and bushy-tailed kids just entering the rite of passage that I just (finally!) completed.

With 40 attentive faces staring up at me from desks in a large classroom, scene complete with old-school blackboard to my back, I had the stage.

I was looking at a new, fresh class of upcoming communicators. Although they’re only a bunch of 17 or 18-year-olds right now, pretty soon they’ll be the interns interns and new hires sitting next to us in this office.

So what wise words of wisdom did I impart?

I summed up the whole surviving college and landing a job experience into four tips. And while I think they’re great personal mantras for getting you through secondary education and into the job force, they apply to what we do every day in the creative field. Here’s the cliff notes of my prepared-the-morning-of (procrastinate much?) speech: Continue reading →

How to write a great slogan

09/08/2010 | admin

Let’s go back to the basics in this post and start to rethink how we express ourselves to the world. Most companies have a slogan or a tag line that pretty much sums up what they offer, what they believe in, what they stand for, their guarantee or promise, or something along those lines. Ok, fair enough.

And we all know the benefit of a slogan – to remind people of SOMETHING about you. It’s your brand, short, sweet and to the point; it’s you in a nut shell. It’s what you want the consumer to remember about your brand. Got it.

But what separates a good slogan from a bad slogan? Well, my friend, all slogans were not created equal! What’s the difference between a few words strung together and a memorable tag line that can last for decades without losing any meaning?

It’s EMOTION.

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not all about the hokey pokey. It’s actually all about emotion. That’s what makes something memorable. To use Al Ries’ example from his last Ad Age article (which, by the way, is so insightful, as usual), it’s one thing when you want to send a package overnight. But when it “absolutely, positively” has to get there, well you’re gonna use Fed Ex, now aren’t you?

Continue reading →

SEO Copywriting: 5 guidelines to help your ranking

08/31/2010 | admin

One thing you learn quick in our industry is that designing and developing a beautiful site is one thing. But if it doesn’t rank anywhere in the search engines and no one can find it, it doesn’t do you or anyone else any good.

That’s why we explain to our clients that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is such a crucial part of promoting their site.

Yes, they can direct clients to the site, or even pay for online advertising, but one of the most rewarding and effective leads is from an organic search.

I know there’s a lot of talk about SEO, but even a lot of our colleagues in the marketing industry are still novices in the practice (not that there’s anything wrong with that).

Here’s a few tips from a really helpful article by Brian Clark on CopyBlogger with 5 guidelines for SEO copywriting success. (Read full article)

Title. Identify target keywords and include them in the title of your content. “The closer to the front of the title your keywords are, the better,” Clark notes.
Meta Description. Though it’s debatable whether keywords in your meta description influence rank, Clark observes that SEO copywriting is also about the presentation of your content in a search engine. “Try to keep the meta description under 165 characters, so the full description is visible in the search result,” he advises.
Content. To make search engines happy, Clark says, use unique and frequently updated content (at least 300 words), “tightly on-topic and centered on the subject matter of the desired keyword phrases.”
Keyword Frequency. Keyword frequency is the number of times your targeted keywords appear on the page. Keyword repetition affects ranking, but don’t over-do it, Clark cautions, or Google might penalize your page.
Page Links. Link to relevant content early in the body copy. Other suggestions: Link to relevant pages every 120 words or so; link to relevant interior pages (not just home pages); and link using naturally relevant anchor text.

(Another Awesome) Video of the Week: Gillette – A Mayne and his razor

08/20/2010 | admin

OK, so we have two favorite videos this week. Hey, it’s our blog, we can post two videos if we want to! And this one has actually killed all the competition in views this week, topping the Ad Age charts with 2.5 million views.

I know we bashed Gillette’s last campaign – no need to remind anyone of “Mullet Nation” – but props for getting your stuff together this time, Gillette!

It’s the company’s newest viral – a spot featuring ESPN analyst Kenny Mayne. Mayne peps himself up with a little self-talk before the show, and although it’s a little on the dry side, we like it. This is one of a series of spots featuring other ESPN personalities in Gillette’s newest campaign. Instead of airing on ESPN itself, on Visible Measures’ distribution advice, the ads appeared on guy-oriented video sites like Break.com and DailyMotion’s Mag.ma.

Video of the week: The Twit Network

08/16/2010 | admin

So we’ve all heard by now about the soon-to-be summer blockbuster, “The Social Network” – a movie about the making of Facebook. While it it sure to be riveting, word on the street is that a lot of it will only “loosely” be based on any true events. The story of one of the youngest self-made billionaires ever and the creator of a world-wide phenomenon is nothing to sneeze at, but I haven’t met anyone as of yet who’s planning to camp out for a midnight release. I mean, I enjoy hours of coding as much as anyone, but I’m more likely to spend two hours surfing Facebook than watching Facebook the Movie.

But what are we totally excited to spread the word about this week? The trailer for the OTHER social paradigm of our generation. A few guys called Indy Mogul created a hilarious spoof trailer for Twitter’s movie, called ‘The Twit Network.” Aptly self-described in the ‘Rated Awesome’ series, it is definitely a good one. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, it’ll become a part of you.

It’s self-deprecating but so true at the same time, and will probably only make you love the Tweet even more. (It kind of reminds me of the “Jersey Shore” – such a ridiculous show full of ridiculous characters and inane drama and idiotic situations that I can’t get enough of it!) It’s sometimes amazing how the most wide-spread, popular, effective and successful tools, and in this case a marketing phenomenon, can spur from the simplest, and perhaps yes pointless of ideas. The best ideas and often the simplest.