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.

Do What Nobody Else Is Doing

The other day I wrote about not doing something just because you have the opportunity, just so you can get your name out there, just so you can have the experience.

Today, I'm very nearly going to contradict myself, but I promise it will make sense.

If you can take a look at what you want to be doing, and everyone within that field is doing it the same way, the time is ripe for someone to come in and be different. Take a look at how everyone else is going from point A to point B...there's probably another way to do it. Maybe it's been thought of, maybe its been tried, maybe it blew. But sometimes the best way from point A to point B is actually backwards, by going from point B to point A. Be the one doing it differently.

Yeah, I realize those of you familar with Seth Godin will recognize that idea, its pretty much what he's built his career on. Doing it differently. Doing it how nobody else is doing it. He's right, though. Why be just another person when you can be the only yourself? If everyone is wearing blue, why aren't you wearing red?

There are plenty of companies and individuals out there who have taken advice from Seth Godin and ran with it...and there are plenty who have not. But that doesn't matter...the way most companies flourish these days is because they're different. Zappos started selling SHOES on the internet. Who would have thought that would work? Now look at them.

This is no new phenomenon either. Since the massive commercialization of the United States, and a large portion of the world, really...very few companies or people have made money by being the same. It happens, of course, but it's not likely. Be different. Be you.

What are your favorite companies or individuals that were successful by being themselves or by doing something different from everyone else?

Thanks for reading...

Step Outside The Box - Literally

Going along with my previous post about coloring, is this one, that was slightly inspired by it.

Why stop at coloring outside the lines? That is a figurative excercise, which is indeed important, but sometimes you need to be literal. Step outside the box.

Why should you do something the same way it's always been done? Tradition? Bullshit. Because you know it'll work? Bingo. Try something different. Take a look around where you are now...chances are a lot of the stuff is there because someone took a literal step outside the box. Putting your product in an unusual place...changing its form factor....changing what it's used for. Selling music at Starbucks. Selling food at a bookstore. Writing a diary on the internet. Email.

Each of those was done because someone thought outside the box. Most of those we take for granted today...what will we take for granted tomorrow?

Thanks for reading...

When You Fail

It will happen. Everyone fails. Everyone drops the ball.

Obviously recovering will depend on what exactly failed, whether it was an entire campaign, or just a particular part of one. It may not even be your fault, or even your company or your product's fault. That failure may even lead to something good....revolutionary, even.

Think of how many things in marketing, advertising and even product packaging have evolved over the past.

The saying goes, that for every warning label you see, some idiot did what it says not to do. I hope you're not that idiot, but maybe we should thank those idiots.

What are your favorite failures and/or recoveries in marketing or advertising?

Thanks for reading...

Take Advantage Of What You Have

With so many advances coming so quickly these days, there is way too much emphasis on keeping up with EVERYTHING. The thing is, not everyone can do that. Not everyone will ever do that. Of course continuous education is very important, but you cannot forget what you learned before. You cannot forget where you came from.

You may not like where you were, but that's the foundation that where you are was built upon. Keep track of what you know, so you can take advantage of it. Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, you cannot afford having more weaknesses than strengths, especially in the business world. You can't make it to the top of the mountain without climbing...just remember what got you up each successive steep face, because if you forget something, you just might fall.

Thanks for reading...

Introduction

I've always been fascinated by advertising and marketing, and when I was younger, wanted to know how to be involved in them. I was able to go to school for marketing and obtain my bachelors degree from Central CT State University.

Being a technology dork, most people would think that internet marketing or next generation marketing would be my specialty. Its not, at least educationalwise. I do have an understanding of how that stuff works, but its all from self education...which I do believe is just as valuable as book learning. However, I'm more familiar with traditional avenues of marketing and advertising.

I'd have to say my favorite marketing campaign of all time is the Real Men of Genius radio advertisements. Every single one of them made me laugh, and the way they were put together was memorable and entertaining. I'm also a big fan of word of mouth and similar concepts, basically the kinds of things that evolved into viral marketing. For example, the early materials on Blair Witch Project, trying to convince people it was real, etc. For its time, that was genius.

I plan to post here as often as possible, but please follow my twitter account, it's linked on the right side, I should post bits and shorts there more often. Thanks for reading.