Archive for July, 2008
So you say it’s your birthday
Well go and get marketed to!
I’ve just had a birthday. Along with various notes and greetings from friends and family, I’ve gotten heartwarming messages from companies I do business with.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with this, as long as it’s not overdone - you are not my friends, marketers! In my email I found one good [...]
Waste of Bandwidth e-mail marketing
It doesn’t happen all the time, but occasionally someone who has read one of my blogs - or somehow discovered me somewhere out there - contacts me to request a meeting for some reason or another. I’ve had people who want to talk to me about potential project work, about job searches, about my reviewing [...]
$#@%*&)@#($*!!!
Over at Ragan.com there’s a debate going on about cussing. The site implemented a “no potty mouth” policy after some of the bloggers there used more profanity than some were comfortable with; they recently published a comment on the subject of bad language from years ago by Ragan’s late founder, Larry Ragan.
Those who use these [...]
A few lessons from Mad Men
As is so often the case with popular TV shows, I’m a little late to the game, just having started watching Mad Men last week when they began marathoning last year’s episodes in anticipation of the start of the year. For those who haven’t seen it yet, Mad Men is about a fictitious Madison Avenue [...]
AT&T’s wifi ping pong
Quite a while ago, AT&T announced that it was going to offer free wifi for iPhone customers at its hotspots (which include Starbucks). That’s a nice perk for customers, and pretty easy to do; iPhones are all on AT&T’s mobile network, so these are existing customers.
It in fact worked briefly, and then AT&T announced that [...]
The empire strikes back?
D’OH! I had written the post below, queued it up for today, and published it - and then Dwight Silverman of the Houston Chronicle pointed out that these are not the new ads from Microsoft. Thank goodness.
I still think that they’re a terrible message, even just appearing on their site; I’d kill them if I [...]
Budget-Schmudget: Things to do when the faucet’s turned off
I know, I know.
A recession - or a crypto-recession, or whatever it is we’ve got going on here - is not the time to stop spending on marketing.
But we all know how budgets work, especially marketing budgets, especially in small companies.
A few deals get canceled or pushed out a quarter or two. Cash [...]
Google’s backwards ad thinking
I love Google ads.
In a world where advertisers consistently demonstrate the definition of insanity: doing more of the same thing because it’s not working - Google turns things on their head. And in doing so, they turn advertising into what marketers always claim it is (despite knowing better): useful information for buyers.
Gerry McGovern at Giraffe [...]
Conflict Resolution: How can we be both too expensive and too cheap?
I’m in the midst of a Win-Loss analysis project for a client. Lucky me! It’s one of my favorite things to do, and while I wouldn’t quite do it for free… As always - it’s been really interesting to speak with customers, as well as with the ones who got away.
I focused on the Win [...]
Virtual worlds aren’t the real world
Michael Sebastian at PR Junkie writes that virtual worlds like Second Life will never, ever catch on:
Blame a perfect storm* of publicity. This summer and fall you will notice—if you haven’t already—a renewed interest in virtual worlds.
Despite what you hear, remember: The idea that real companies will conduct business in virtual worlds like Second Life is utterly ridiculous.
My [...]
