Wednesday, May 20, 2009

UPrinting.com 16x20 Poster Print Contest RESULTS!!!









Thanks again to Uprinting.com for helping me with this giveaway. They are your source for the following, and so much more;

Online Poster Printing
Poster Printing

Without further delay, especially since the post is late, the winner of my contest drawing, drawing done courtesy a web based RNG - The winner is, GUY CROSS! Congrats Guy, make sure to leave me your email address so UPrinting.com will be able to contact you to claim your prize.

Thanks to everyone who entered, hopefully I'll be doing more contests, and get more competitors.

Monday, May 18, 2009

In The Palm Of Your Hands

side note - the winner of the contest in my previous post will be revealed tomorrow.

Now, onto the main attraction. As a music fan, and a guy who will hit a live concert at just about any opportunity, I am fascinated by the rare breed of artist that can take the audience and put it in the palm of their hand, and basically play with it because they can. It really is a very small percentage of people that have that level of charisma and talent. It's scarily small when you take into consideration the millions of musicians and singers and such out there.

Is the same true for marketing/advertising, etc? Are there a very very small percentage of people that can take control of their audience and pretty much make them do as they please?

Yes.

The same kind of person that is a rarity in the entertainment world is just as rare in the marketing/advertising world. Sure, there are plenty of people who can do it good enough to get the job done, and people that are good enough at it to be among the top in the industry. But just like in the music industry, there is that extremely small percentage that transcend the marketing industry.

Is there an exact formula to it? I have no idea, if I did, I'd be rich as shit from selling said formula, and I'd be among the elite myself.

What do YOU think?

Thanks for reading...

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

UPrinting.com 16x20 Poster Print Contest!


Howdy folks!

I am giving away a prize, just because people read my blog! Everyone who reads my blog will have a chance (maybe even two!) to win a 16 x 20 Poster Print from UPrinting.com!!!

There are 2 ways to enter the contest. You may do both if you desire. Two entries is the maximum, and you have to do each way, you cannot do two comments or two blog posts. The first of either or both ways will be the one counted.

The contest runs from right now until noon on Sunday. Today is Wednesday April 13th, Sunday is April 17th. Here's how to enter:

a. Leave a comment explaining how you would creatively use their print

b. Write a post on your blog linking to this post and linking back to www.uprinting.com

The entire world is eligible for this contest, however only the United States and Canada receive free shipping of the contest prize. Other countries must only pay for postage. I will post the winner within 24 hours of the end of the contest, and also email the winner. You MUST provide an email address. It is how I and/or UPrinting.com will be contacting everyone.



Online Poster Printing
Poster Printing

Monday, May 11, 2009

The Many Angles Of Truth

How is it that two companies that sell the same product can tell you the exact opposite things, and still both be telling the truth?

They can't...but they also can, often both at the same time.

This all goes along with a two part blog series I wrote on Blellow, about your personal story. Products have a story too. Everything in the business world has a story. Otherwise it wouldn't be where it is.

Many products or services can do more than one thing. I'd wager that nearly every single one can, actually. The thing is, most of them only tell you what they want you to know. Is that dishonest? No, not really - they're not lying (well, some might be, but thats a whole separate post for another time) and they want you to use their product for their intended purpose. Their intended purpose may be vastly different from some other product that does some or most of the same thing, but if the people behind it have different ideas on what you should do with it, they'll present different stories. They're both telling you the truth; but its the truth they want you to hear, not necessarily the full truth.

Some people would say that is dishonest. I wouldn't. Why shouldn't I be able to tell you that my product, while similar to yours, does some different things? Why would I put out a product that does the same stuff as someone else and say exactly that? I wouldn't - because I would fail, damn near immediately.

From a business perspecive, telling you what someone wants you to know is the way that it's done. Some people on the outside don't like it, and do think of it as misleading or distrustful, but many of them can't really tell you a coherent reason why they don't like it.

Most of what seems to be the problem is the whole concept of "story" because when people hear story, they immediately jump to fiction. Your story within business MUST NOT be fiction, otherwise you're going to be found out, and you'll be done. Probably out a lot of money, too.

Crafting your story, while still telling the truth and not being misleading isn't exactly easy. What are some of your favorite product stories? What are some of your favorite product stories that differentiate very similar products?

Thanks for reading...

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Oddball Or Interesting Places For Promotional Material

I've always been a fan of finding new and interesting places to put advertising or marketing materials or logos and such. In fact, it was one of my duties when I interned for my local ampitheatre several years back - to assist the corporate sales team in coming up with ways to take advantage of unused space for advertising purposes.

I haven't seen much that really caught my eye or surprised me in quite some time, other than those that you see in articles around the internet that were for contests or what have you. Until this morning. I was depositing my unemployment check (yes, I'm unemployed. I'm not the only one) at my Webster Bank near my house. On the back of my receipt was an advertisement for discount tickets to a professional golf tournament that has been in Cromwell, CT for decades now, the former Greater Hartford Open, formerly sponsored by Canon, and most recently Buick.

All the needed information was present...the tournament name, dates and location, and the website to buy the tickets, along with the discount code, and a short bit of advertising copy.

Why had noone (that I am aware of) thought of this yet? Its freakin' brilliant! You have a captive audience, because everyone needs to use a bank for something or other fairly often these days. Why is it that only banks seem to advertise on their ATM slips? There's got to be plenty of related things that could be on the backs of those....fer chrissakes, grocery stores have advertisements on their receipts, that probably one person has ever used, especially since they have the seperate coupon printers nowadays.

What's your favorite random place you have ever seen an advertisement?

Thanks for reading.

Friday, May 1, 2009

Advertising within java/flash games

No, not product placement, that would be a huge waste of time. Nobody needs to see the Bloons monkey drinking a Coca Cola, or the tilty motorcycle actually be a Harley Davidson. I mean companies actually producing java games with their stuff in them.

I know a while back that Nabisco did a whole lot of childrens' style games with very little going on in any of them, and a large amount of product placement. This is a really unexplored thing, I believe. We're so concerned with viral videos, and getting our customer service departments on Twitter, that something like this is being left behind, for the most part.

With the one possible exception of Comedy Central, I suppose. Take a look at their website sometime. If you're at all familiar with any of their programming beyond the standup comedy specials, you will recognize a ton of stuff if you wander into their game section of their website.

Small companies...find a game developer that can do a java/flash game for you....even something as simple as a choose your own adventure or a madlib, if done well will bring you lots of traffic, and people will have fun, and remember you.

Thanks for reading...