6/28/2009

Wedding cake advertising

Click here for a very nice collection of wedding cake themed ads. I like the Axe one best, which one do you like?

6/27/2009

Ambient marketing

I found this blog: Crooked Brains, where they have lot's of interesting marketing blog posts and also lot's of not so much interesting, but even so, sometimes hilarious, blog posts with cats that look like Hitler.
Anyway, this post was of particular interest for me, since it has lot's of funny examples of ambient/guerrilla marketing. Check it out!

6/22/2009

Boilerplate

Learned a new word the other day: boilerplate. It is a describing text (for example about your company) that you can print on the bottom of letters/web pages etc, without making lot's of adjustments to the text.

Boilerplate @ Wiki.

6/21/2009

Social Marketing

I will read this "handbook": "Social Marketing Playbook" as soon as I get the time.
360i Social Marketing Playbook
It seems very interesting, but I have other interesting stuff going on! Will let you know as soon as I can... :)

6/20/2009

American phone number

I saw that the Swedish Price Waterhouse Coopers offices have got a cool phone number: 0771-PWC PWC (0771-792 792). The number is of course a good way to strengthen the PWC brand. For those of you that are Americans out there, this might not be so newsworthy, but in Sweden it is quite unusual to have phone numbers formed from words.
Upcoming trend maybe?! Mine would of course be 056-8338368 :)

6/18/2009

In-game advertising


At the airport the other week I picked up the magazine Gate, and I read a very interesting article about in-game advertising (IGA). It's quite amazing all the stuff I find interesting in airport magazines...

Anyway, the article discusses IGA as the new (and possibly only) way to reach the target group of men, 18-34 years old. They play computer games more than they watch TV, and apparently the target group find that IGA make the games more realistic. According to the article, one of the more famous usages of IGA was the start-up of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, where his picture and the slogan "Vote for change" was seen on billboards in 18 different computer games. This was the first time IGA was used in a presidential campaign, and apparently it was quite successful, right?! ;)

Ed Bartlett from the company IGA Worldwide thinks that IGA is very successful due to two different aspects: 1) when you play a game, it is multi-tasking-secure. You must be 100 % focused on the game and focus on what's going on on the screen. 2) IGA Worldwide has a way of measuring the size and screen time for each advertiser, and so the client is only invoiced for actual exposure. These two aspects combined with the high concentration of wealthy 18-34 year olds and the strong growth within gaming segment gives a very potent mix in advertising. But Ed might be a bit biased ;)

Even so, it might be that IGA is something we will see more of in the future, or what do YOU think?

6/17/2009

innocent storytelling


Last week, I attended an event hosted by Passion for Business magazine and Casall Sportswear. The event was catered by Blueberry. They served sandwiches and innocent smoothies. With the smoothies came a small information booklet. I was going to just throw it away but decide to flip through it. In the booklet you could read the story behind innocent smoothies.
Picture borrowed from innocentdrinks.se.

Three London guys bougth a whole lot of fruit and rented a stall at a music festival. They made smoothies of the fruit and had a sign on the stall saying "Do you think we should give up our jobs to make these smoothies?". In front of the stall they had two waste bins, one for YES and one for NO, so their customers could vote. By the end of the festival the YES waste bin was full, and the next Monday the guys quit their job and started a smoothies company called innocent. Read their full story here.
This little story, true or false, made me feel like there are real people behind the company, and it made the company more trustworthy. When they state that their smoothies contain only fresh fruit and nothing else, I am prone to believe them!

Innocent now is represented all over the world, and seem to be keeping a very familiar tone in ther marketing strategy, they even call all their customers 'family'! This is something that appeals to me and I will sure continue to buy innocent smoothies...

6/10/2009

Wedding invitation inspiration







Some wedding invitation inspiration for you! And if you need more, check out these links;
Bella Figura, Kate's Wedding or Hello Lucky.

6/06/2009

Branding by Tony Apéria

Last week at the airport I picked up a copy of the airport magazine "Inrikes". It featured an interesting, but too short, article about Tony Apéria, and his Nordic Brand Academy. Each year they publish a list of the most successful Swedish brands. This year IKEA was number one.

Apéria states two important perspectives when building brand strategies: first, the managment needs to have a clear vision and get the employees to feel as a part of the corporate culture, and secondly, the employees need to engage the clients as part of the vision.
Apéria also speaks of building emotional connections and trying to get the brand's personality to shine through.

Interesting, but, too short. I will have to check out some of Apéria's books... Pick up the magazine at the airport if you are flying within Sweden the next few weeks!

6/04/2009

Extraordinary events blog

Need inspiration, as well as hands-on planning tips for that extraordinary event? Check out ready 2 spark blog! Really my kind of stuff! :)

6/03/2009

Boot camp for event planners (Canada)

If you live in Canada you might want to check out the Special Event Boot Camp, a series of workshops for event planners.

6/02/2009

A few guerrilla marketing tips

Find some guerrilla marketing tips in the article: Guerrilla Marketing Isn't Just Monkey Business, from TheStreet.com. (Though the site itself doesn't seem to be marketing related...)