OK, I admit it. I am totally obsessed with AMC's recent hit Mad Men, a drama series about the advertising industry on Madison Avenue in the early 1960s.
Mad Men focuses on the intra-offices politics of a fictitious independent advertising agency, and is loaded with excessive smoking and drinking, blatant sexism against the female office workers, and a stunning wardrobe of handmade suits and dresses that will make even the Birkenstock-wearers among us swoon.
And oh yeah, sometimes they pitch ad concepts to clients, too.
What's really interesting to me is that Mad Men instigates some real discussions on agency/client relationships, and I foresee college professors using this show as a discussion starter in their classes in no time.
Working in marketing, a huge part of your job is to stay on top of what's going on in our clients' industries, innovations and what people are talking about. Around the office, I'm always hearing tidbits of someone fired up about a new service that just launched, a really cool new Web site that's making life easier, or on something they're just plain excited about.
Here are a few of things that have got our attention lately:
Dapper: Dapper allows you to take data from a Web site and put it into a given format (RSS feeds, Google Maps, e-mail, HMTL, etc). Personally, I use it to turn keyword searches on The New York Times Web site into RSS feeds. For instance, you can learn every time The New York Times reports on a company you're investing in, your town, your client—whatever you're interested in! For me, it's a great way to keep tabs on when top-tier journalists are writing on stuff I care about.
Greenprint: Why print pages you don't have to—or want to? Greenprint makes it easy for you, saves money and helps the environment.
Semantify: ReadWriteWeb's Marshall Kirkpatrick just wrote about Semantify yesterday and we're eager to try it ourselves. From the same folks who bring you Dapper, it makes Web sites readable by semantic search engines.
Found anything really cool lately you want to share? I'd love to hear about it.
Yesterday, Techvibes released its monthly Start-up Index for Portland. Techvibes uses Alexa and Compete to compile these rankings.
Criteria for inclusion are that the companies are:
It's nice to see several MMG past/present clients on this list. Our client Iterasi, which launched at DEMO a few weeks back to great fanfare, made its debut on the list at #19.
You can view the list in its entirety here.
In an article on their Web site about How a Holiday Becomes a Card-Sending Occasion, Hallmark argues that “…if you think that special date on the calendar is a "just a Hallmark holiday," think again. There are fascinating histories behind every holiday for which Hallmark makes cards.”
And today is what many would call one of those "Hallmark holidays"—Valentine’s Day. A day where lovers dine. Mothers bake heart-shaped cookies for their little ones. Husbands send flowers.
And specifically, many of us exchange cards. Lots and lots of cards.
According to the Greeting Card Association, “The first Valentines in America were exchanged during the Revolutionary days and were mostly handmade with sentimental verses written in flowing script. In 1840, Miss Esther Howland, an imaginative artist and entrepreneur, became the first regular publisher of valentines in the United States, eventually heading her own publishing firm that specialized in Valentine cards.”
Since then, a whole industry has popped up making big bucks off of the day. Stores change their merchandise and storefronts mid-January. Chocolate wrappers everywhere turn pink and purple. 1-800-Flowers makes a killing. And industry icon Hallmark and other greeting card manufacturers are some of the hugest beneficiaries:
Beyond Christmas, Valentine’s Day is the second biggest greeting card holiday, accounting for 25 percent of total sales.
Hallmark estimates that we will give out 190 million greeting cards today, not including the classroom made variety, which would tip the scales at 1 billion total. At $3 a pop or so, that means sales of greeting cards for just today may reach nearly $600 million.
I really don't see "Hallmark holidays" going away anytime soon. And lots of companies make their milk off of this fact.
My question to you, though, is that even if the history of Valentine's Day and any other "Hallmark holiday" is fascinating, is it really worth a greeting card? Hallmark thinks so. By the flowers sitting on my desk today, other people think so, too. But what's your take?
It is no secret to anyone who knows me even casually that I'm a bit of a podcasting nut. I listen to podcasts at the gym. At home. On the bus. On walks to the grocery store.
So much for music. Podcasts are really the soundtrack of my life.
So as a marketer, I found this new article released by eMarketer really interesting. Currently, only 18.5 million of us listen to podcasts regularly. But by 2012, this number will reach 65 million. In just 4 years, that's an increase of 251%. Talk about a huge leap.
Looks like podcasting is moving from the early adopter phase and into the mainstream.
These numbers are enough to make any advertiser do a double take. Many podcasts have very niche audiences, allowing for specialized audience targeting. And unlike radio, podcasts can be played again and again, and at the listener's discretion—particular when they have time to really listen to what's being said.
If the predictions hold true, I'm interested to see how advertising and sponsorships are proliferated through podcasts in the next few years as more people than ever tune in. Perhaps integrating a podcast strategy into your own business is something you should consider if you haven't already.
And as a welcomed personal side effect, I really hope these statistics mean I'll soon have a whole slew of people to gab with about the latest episode of All Songs Considered!
All of us in the office have hopped on the bandwagon and are now using Twitter, a social networking service where you publish micro pieces of information up to 140 words long. What does this look like? Well, look at my Twitter page for an example.
Lately I've been thinking about the implication of the type of information Twitter provides—what I have been referring to (at least in my own head) as microknowledge.
Essentially what Twitter is...is microknowledge. How much context can be added in 140 words? Not much. Like so much out there in our lives today, we are all losing our patience. We want it faster, briefer. But if we get it faster and briefer, what do we lose in the process?
In the bigger picture of things, I say we may be losing our ability to analyze, draw conclusions, and think about things deeply and meaningfully.
This is not to say I think microknowledge has no value. It absolutely does. And I've come across some really interesting things thanks to it.
I just wonder the implications microknowledge has in the scheme of our intelligence and its effect on our ability to most effectively find our personal reality and truth as human beings. Without context, can ever have meaning?
Truth be told, we are all are experiencing major info bloat! And not much of the info is relevant.
I'd like your input. How do you think microknowledge has affected you and how you learn and process information? My take: There is a big difference between intelligent and intelligence.
We all have the power to be influencers, but not all influencers are created equal.
Or so a great post at Point Oh! suggests. Whether those influencers are media, analysts or peers (the post in question concerns the latter), the idea is the same: they are the folks whose opinions have the power to change the opinions and actions of others.
I was over at KATU studios in NE Portland this morning. Laura Peterson, founder of MMG’s nonprofit client, Hands to Hearts International, was a featured guest on today's AM Northwest.
During her segment, Laura gave host Dave Anderson quite the lesson in baby massage.
See Laura teaching Dave basic baby massage techniques with the help of one very cute baby.
Baby massage has numerous health benefits for children and also supports bonding and attachment with caregivers.
It is one of many tools HHI uses in its work in developing countries, where it provides educational trainings to caregivers on how they can improve their care for the orphaned and vulnerable children they oversee.
Sometimes I go to Web sites of companies I like to see what promotions they are running and how they are engaging with their audiences. I recently did this for my favorite candle maker The Yankee Candle Company on a whim.
Not only did I sign up for their e-newsletter, but I came to find they were having a special one-day sale...and now my office smells like it! Coconut Cookie Bar, anyone?
But e-commerce sites aren’t the only ones that have learned they need to engage with their audiences online to make the sale.
The OregonStartUps.com News Blog counts 50+ Web 2.0 companies in Oregon.
So why would people want to share PowerPoint presentations?
I came across SlideShare over at Strategic Public Relations, and I'm intrigued by the potential applications for something like this.
Curious about our experience and how we have created market leadership for our clients?
We’re not an advertising agency or a PR firm. We’re just like your in house marketing department.
