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Showing posts from February, 2009

The Coolest Job for 2009

Small Marketing Budget? Lofty expectations? No problem. Although the global recession is evaporating marketing budgets across various industries, it does not have to affect creativity and results. Recently, The Australian tourism board posted the Island Reef Job , a 6-month job living in North-Eastern Australia and blogging about the Great Barrier Reef. The evangelist job only requires 12 hours of work each month and pays 100,000 USD . Swimming? Snorkeling? Feeding Fish? Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, consider this short-term job more of a marketing opportunity for Australia. According to the website, the Island Reef Job received over 34,000 1-minute YouTube video applications. Imagine having over 30,000 individuals post a video on YouTube that passionately describes your organization, company or brand. ...And then sharing the content with their friends to increase their chances of winning the contest, promotion or job application. According to TargetCast , the average price

Black History Month

As Black History Month concludes next week, it is interesting to reflect on how much society has changed since 1926. Airwaves are filled by The Oprah Winfrey Show, the highest-rated talk show in the history of television. Tiger Woods, Lebron James and Vladimir Guerrero dominate their respective professional sports. Forest Whitaker, Jamie Foxx and Denzel Washington dazzle audiences with Oscar winning performances. America has its first African American President. When historian Carter G. Woodson founded "Negro History Week" in 1926 during the second week of February, he created an important event to bring awareness to black history. Woodson choose the second week of February, because it fell on the birthdays of former President Lincoln an abolitionist and former slave Fredrick Douglas. The event was created 61 years after the Thirteenth Amendment was added to the US Constitution and marked another significant leap forward. Today, Black History Month signifies a month of reme

25

Over a month ago on Facebook I was tagged in a friend's note called "25." The note stated 25 random facts about my friend. Additionally, she tagged 25 friends in the note and encouraged each of them to write 25 facts facts about themselves and repeat the process. Since I was tagged in the first "25" note, I have read several more"25" notes in my friend's Facebook profiles. Thanks to the interview illusion theory , I feel that I know more about the writer. As I know more about a friend, I feel I have a closer understanding of that person and will be more comfortable the next time we spend time together. As the network effect encourages more friends to write "25" notes, I keep imagining the marketing potential if this "25" campaign had been started by a brand. In January, Burger King launched a Facebook marketing campaign called "The Whopper Sacrifice," a Facebook application that awarded a coupon for a free hamburger i

Alps

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Enjoy some photographs from a recent trip to Austria and Switzerland. (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Austria (C) Tiner) (Switzerland (C) Tiner) (Switzerland (C) Tiner) (Switzerland (C) Tiner)

Medicine Balls & Beach Balls

"Kind words do not cost much. Yet they accomplish much." - Blaise Pascal In an era of short attention spans, it can be difficult to retain interest during a conversation, lecture or presentation. Frequently, the talker and the listener have to share common interest to have both parties engaged. Even when common interest is shared, a conversation can be too stimulating or too trivial and cause a person to loose interest. In order to effectively engage and keep a conversation stimulating, communication should be balanced between passion and grace. Between medicine balls and beach balls. If you only throw a medicine ball to someone, they will eventually become exhausted. If you only throw a beach ball, the novelty will fade and the person will not be challenged. Similar to playing catch with different sizes of balls, communication should be balanced between medicine balls and beach balls. The balance will help stimulate and lightly engage a communicator and listener. ...And ma

Catalina

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(C) Tiner (C) Tiner (C) Tiner

Your Computer's Been Punked

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What's the most effective banner advertisement of all time? How about one that requires you to manually remove it from your computer monitor. Staged in BBDO's New York office, Frank Anselmo & Jayson Atienza " vandalized " 500 iMac screens by placing hand drawn graffiti over the monitor screens. Building security unlocked the building early on the summer morning so Anselmo and Atienza could place the acetate sheets over their coworker's computers. The prank was to promote kids day at work as each graffiti message had the tagline "Bring kids to work. Friday, August 24" written in the corner. As consumers and even coworkers are bombarded with over 3,000 advertising messages and 5,000 branded messages a day, how are you going to separate your product, company, brand, or event from the herd? Yes, it requires thinking a little differently, but sometimes the most innovative ideas are the salmons that swim (or graffiti) against the current.

Faces

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(O.J. Mayo by Tiner)

Surf City Marathon

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(Pre-Race) Yesterday, I ran in the Surf City 1/2 marathon with my cousin and a few friends. I really enjoyed running in the event and seeing the enthusiasm of over 18,000 participants. (Run for Mobility Wheel Chair) Proceeds from the race benefited Run for Mobility , a nonprofit that donates wheel chairs constructed out of outdoor furniture and mountain bike wheels to the needy. The wheel chairs cost around $50 to construct and yesterday's event raised enough money to supply over 11,000 wheel chairs! Surf's up to that!

5 Memorable Superbowl Ads

(Hulu.com' CRISPIN featuring Alex Baldwin) Television and computers influence mind? Who would have thought. (Monster.com's The Moose) The moose is loose. Well, not for the time being. (Ed McMahon's Cash4Gold) Apparently, we really are in a recession when Ed McMahon and MC Hammer are pimping the Cash4Gold service. But before you think about cashing in your dental crowns, remember the service is only offering 17 cents on the dollar. (Coca-Cola's Heist) I thought this was one of the most visually stimulating and aesthetically creative advertisements of the night. (Coke Zero with Steeler's Polamalu) Coke's comical remake of the iconic 1980 "Mean Joe Greene" advertisement will be discussed for years to come.