An image is popping up all over Facebook and other parts of the Internet right now that shows a sign at Nordstroms saying that they aren’t going to deck their halls for Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving. I was a little suspicious about the validity of the photo since it came across Facebook and seemed too good to be true, but I’ve found multiple stories online that help confirm that this is the real deal. A major retailer has done what I previously thought was impossible: saved Christmas for Christmas Time!

It turns out that this is actually a long-standing practice at Nordstroms and the sign pictured was from last year. Perhaps the timing (seasonal) and the Internet being the perfect medium for sharing are helping make this something people are talking about right now. But the more interesting thing to me is that despite Christmas decorations and merchandising appearing earlier and earlier every year nearly everywhere else, Nordstroms sticks by their guns and – as they say – celebrate one holiday at a time.

The sign reads:

at Nordstrom…

We won’t be decking our halls until Friday, November 27.

Why? Well, we just like the idea of celebrating one holiday at a time.

From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving.

We will be closed Thanksgiving Day.
On Friday, our doors will open to welcome the new season.

It takes guts to do so. A lot of retailers don’t have the gumption to do anything of the sort. A lot of businesses don’t have the willpower to take a position in something they believe in and understand that by doing so, they may lose out on some business but strengthen their relationship with other customers. When you stand up for what you believe in, those who identify with you become stronger advocates. Others can also see that you have principles and use them as guidelines for how you do business.

More businesses need to realize that they can’t be all things to all people. Be unique, stand up for something, and tell people about it. You’ll find your audience, your audience will find you, and you will have a more dedicated following. The risk, however, is that as soon as you stand for something, you have to continue to follow through.

But why should that be hard to do in business? It’s not – there just aren’t enough examples to follow. Maybe it’s time for that to change.

Because everything is new, and so much had to be done, we’ve all been working at a feverish pace to get everything ready. In the last few weeks the communications elements have rolled out. TV and radio spots are running, a new local website was launched, billboards and street pole banners were put up, an insert appeared in the paper, email marketing got hot and heavy, a text alert program was launched, airport multi-media displays at baggage claim began running. The list was long. And now the big event is about to kick off.

Yesterday was the official kick off press conference and even some of our interns got put to work. Joe Burke delivered some 20k information inserts for fans to area hotels and businesses. And both Joe and Jennifer Fisher acted as human easels today to make sure exhibits didn’t blow down during the press conference.

We had an entire crew down at the stadium for the press kickoff to work logistics. Pictured here are just a few. Interns Jennifer Fisher and Joe Burke and  staffers Emily Wenstrom and Laura Spaulding.

Just in the nick of time, literally with only 30 minutes to spare before the first team arrived on Wednesday, the airport welcome banners were installed.

Every year has its share of challenges. This year the big one is water. It’s everywhere. Even cropping up this week into parking lot D and giving officials some headaches. Flooding is also on the mind of fans coming into town and we’ve needed to provide information about road closures and suggested detours. This is the first time we’ve needed to add a page to the website to include updates on flooding and road detours. Challenges aside, everyone is powering through it and the show will go on. And it will be great!

Come on down and catch the free opening ceremonies and a game. Tickets are still available at the box office and the view is FINE!

We’ve worked with the local organizing committee for the College World Series for many, many years (in fact one of our founders helped convince the NCAA to bring the tournament to Omaha). We’ve helped grow the event and build excitement year after year.

But back in 2008 when the initial recommendation to build a new state-of-the-art stadium was brought up — since it would cost almost the same as upgrades to Rosenblatt, and position Omaha more strongly for a long-term contract with the NCAA — the idea wasn’t an automatic home run. In fact, it faced an enormous amount of resistance and fear of what a move downtown would do to the colorful, somewhat kitchy, home-town feel of the series. Read more about that effort.

People were worried that it wouldn’t be the same.  And they were right. It is different, but that doesn’t mean less. New memories, new experiences, new firsts and a new chapter in history.

Last week when the stadium opened, there was a lot of buzz and you could feel the excitement. Tickets sold out for the inaugural game — fittingly enough between Creighton (long-time CWS host institution) and NU. The first tailgaters showed up on a cold April morning, bundled in blankets or outfitted in hooded sweatshirts. They barbecued, they played catch and they partied.  When the gates opened and people entered the stadium, they were wowed and warmed, despite the bitter cold evening. I can’t count the number of times I heard the words “wow”, “awesome” and “niiiiice”.

Sitting in the stands of the new stadium with its incredible sight lines and amazing views; walking the wide open concourses or being able to keep an eye on the action while you get a soda, it’s hard for anyone, even the biggest skeptic, to argue that new game watching experience wasn’t a change for the better. And after the game, it’s soooo easy to walk over to a restaurant or bar to relax or grab a bite and let the traffic clear out. There is so much to do in the area and the circulatory shuttle will allow people to move around easily and enjoy what downtown has to offer. I was thrilled when I learned about that shuttle,  because it picks up in the Old Market, right near our office.

When we experience the first series in the new stadium, there will no doubt be some hiccups as we all get used to the new locale. After all we had a lot of years mastering how it all worked at Rosenblatt. But like me, most people are incredibly excited to build new traditions, new memories and watch history happen from a new vantage point. I can’t wait.

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Managing change in your business isn’t easy, but click here for a few tips that might help.

The New Location: 1022 Leavenworth

We spent the first workday of the new year in our new office space. The place is a mess of boxes and stuff that still sits where the movers put it down, but the place feels great. And as we get it all put together it will be amazing.

The move was quick, but it was a long time in the making. We first starting pondering a move to a less corporate space when we bought the company back from Interpublic Group in 2001. But the cost of a big move combined with debt from the buyback put the dream on the back burner. In 2005 we checked out several spaces but found nothing that thrilled us enough to justify the cost and disruption of moving. In 2008 we started looking again, but as the economy slid into depression so too did our dreams of open, collaborative spaces and a more creative neighborhood.

The "Before" photo. When Halo was in the space.

When we started looking again in the summer of 2010 we didn’t want to draw it out. We wanted to make a move fast. And we did. Mainly because we lucked out in finding a space we fell in love with before it went on the market. And while it needed some work and upgrades, it was something that could be done in mere months — not a year like most spaces. So we made the decision in September and swarms of movers descended upon us last Thursday. We thought the last week of the year would be somewhat slow in terms of workload, but it turned out to be a busy one.

They say hope for the best, plan for the worst. Well it’s so nice when everything goes right and the best happens. We found a great space that was exactly what we wanted. We were able to find reserved parking for all our staffers right nearby. We had a great architect (Randy Brown) and contractors that did everything at light speed — from wiring to HVAC, to an all new phone system and room buildouts, to custom building 60 workstations and book cases, not to mention worktables and more. And the weather even cooperated on the days of our move. Everything worked like clockwork.

Boxes. That pretty much sums up what the place looks like right now. But soon it will emerge.

Fantastic Bozell teams organized the entire process, and all things considered, the whole thing went incredibly smoothly. We even had full network access the day we moved so that those who had impending client projects and deadlines could work without disruption. We have amazing people and I thank all of them for all their hard work and never-ending passion.

We love being downtown near the Old Market. The creative atmosphere is strong. The neighborhood is energizing. And the lunch spots…well they beat the heck out of West O.

As we put the place together, we’ll post some photos. And stay tuned, because we’ll have an open house to share some food and drinks and show off the new digs.

Happy New Year!

More on our move:
Silicon Prairie News
Bozell on Facebook

I was stunned. So many people have embraced the mantra: reduce/reuse/recycle. They go far out of their way and spend a considerable amount of extra money to help the planet. And now these bastions of earth friendliness, the caring companies with a corporate conscience who are entreating us to join in and enable them to save the planet have become the enemy.

Now who can you trust? It seems unthinkable to keep providing money to the lying SOBs but what’s the alternative? Stop supporting green (or faux green) living altogether? I honestly don’t have the answer.

I was struck by the fact that at least six of the technologies have already, or will, impact brand strategy and communications planning. Many of these are already being employed at some level.

Listed below are the six technologies with a brief explanation taken from the Gartner press release.

Mobile Applications and Media Tablets

Gartner estimates that by the end of 2010, 1.2 billion people will carry handsets capable of rich, mobile commerce providing an ideal environment for the convergence of mobility and the Web. Mobile devices are becoming computers in their own right, with an astounding amount of processing ability and bandwidth. There are already hundreds of thousands of applications for platforms like the Apple iPhone, in spite of the limited market (only for the one platform) and need for unique coding.

The quality of the experience of applications on these devices, which can apply location, motion and other context in their behavior, is leading customers to interact with companies preferentially through mobile devices. This has lead to a race to push out applications as a competitive tool to improve relationships and gain advantage over competitors whose interfaces are purely browser-based.

Social Communications and Collaboration

Social media can be divided into:

1. Social networking —social profile management products, such as MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Friendster as well as social networking analysis (SNA) technologies that employ algorithms to understand and utilize human relationships for the discovery of people and expertise.
2. Social collaboration —technologies, such as wikis, blogs, instant messaging, collaborative office, and crowdsourcing.
3. Social publishing —technologies that assist communities in pooling individual content into a usable and community accessible content repository such as YouTube and flickr.
4. Social feedback – gaining feedback and opinion from the community on specific items as witnessed on YouTube, flickr, Digg, Del.icio.us, and Amazon.

Gartner predicts that by 2016, social technologies will be integrated with most business applications. Companies should bring together their social CRM, internal communications and collaboration, and public social site initiatives into a coordinated strategy.

Video

This is not a new media form, but its use as a standard media type used in non-media companies is expanding rapidly. Technology trends in digital photography, consumer electronics, the web, social software, unified communications, digital and Internet-based television and mobile computing are all reaching critical tipping points that bring video into the mainstream.

Over the next three years Gartner believes that video will become a commonplace content type and interaction model for most users, and by 2013, more than 25 percent of the content that workers see in a day will be dominated by pictures, video or audio.

Next Generation Analytics

Increasing compute capabilities of computers including mobile devices along with improving connectivity are enabling a shift in how businesses support operational decisions. It is becoming possible to run simulations or models to predict the future outcome, rather than to simply provide backward looking data about past interactions, and to do these predictions in real-time to support each individual business action.

Social Analytics

Social analytics describes the process of measuring, analyzing and interpreting the results of interactions and associations among people, topics and ideas. These interactions may occur on social software applications used in the workplace, in internally or externally facing communities or on the social web.

Social analytics is an umbrella term that includes a number of specialized analysis techniques such as social filtering, social-network analysis, sentiment analysis and social-media analytics. Social network analysis tools are useful for examining social structure and interdependencies as well as the work patterns of individuals, groups or organizations. Social network analysis involves collecting data from multiple sources, identifying relationships, and evaluating the impact, quality or effectiveness of a relationship.

Context-Aware Computing

Context-aware computing centers on the concept of using information about an end user or object’s environment, activities connections and preferences to improve the quality of interaction with that end user. The end user may be a customer, business partner or employee.

The other strategic technologies are cloud computing, storage-class memory, ubiquitous computing and fabric-based infrastructure and computers.

Are you using these technologies to your advantage?

I shop at Chico’s on occasion but I have steadfastly avoided anything that resembled an “outfit”. I’ve never wanted to be tainted with the slightly dowdy, more mature woman look that I’ve always associated with the brand. Sure they have an occasional garment or piece of jewelry that’s cool enough to fit into a working professional’s wardrobe – but that’s about it.

The new TV spot changed everything. You mean if I buy my outfits at Chico’s I’ll look like her? I’m in, baby!

I told my husband that Chico’s had finally gotten it right. He googled the campaign and told me the model in the spot is 36. Come on guys. Did you think we wouldn’t find out? You don’t get me at all do you?

In an industry that is riddled with lingo and acronyms it is very easy for people to be saying the same word but have different meanings. While someone may throw out the term “brand”, it could mean one thing to a small retailer and something entirely different to a large service oriented company.

Leave egos at the door and keep your minds open to different ideas and perceptions.

At what point does choice cease to be compelling and become instead, a burden? Have we devalued real choice by making such a big deal out of small differences? Are we diluting brands with too many line extensions? These questions had me curious and interestingly enough while doing some research over the weekend, I found an excellent new video presentation on TED on this very subject. Definitely worth watching. It may give you a fresh perspective.

Although widely used in Europe and Japan, QR codes are still somewhat of a novelty here in the US. However, as smartphone penetration increases, it’s becoming more and more common to see QR codes appear in ads, on packaging and used in general promotions. We’ve played with these a bit here at Bozell, but since most U.S. citizens still do not own smartphones, and even those that do don’t necessarily know what a QR code is or have the necessary scanning software to read it meant pretty limited exposure. However analysts predict that smartphone penetration will match feature phones by this time next year, so the picture could change drastically.

Since I live in neither NY nor LA I obviously didn’t have the opportunity to scan the CK QR code myself to see what happened (although I tried from online images but couldn’t get it to work). When I finally saw the exclusive, 40-second commercial (below) that the QR code brings up featuring Lara Stone, I was disappointed. I guess I expected something way more provocative given CK’s history. Seems like a missed opportunity to me. From what I understand, it’s a test for CK, but marks the official premiere of Calvin Klein Jeans’s Fall 2010 advertising campaign. At the conclusion of the video, viewers can then share the code with their Facebook and Twitter networks.

It was a warm Saturday evening and I had to attend the wedding of a young employee from my company. I dressed in my best black cocktail dress and heels and was feeling fairly pleased with myself when Joe, my husband, and I headed over to the festivities.

The reception provided a good chance to “catch up” with some of our staffers. As it began to wind down one of my direct reports – a young guy – took it upon himself to patiently usher me out of the reception hall and out to my car with comments like “well, I guess this thing is over”, “time to get on out of here”.

I noticed that as soon as my car started heading out of the parking lot that my self-appointed escort had high-tailed it back into the building. Hmmm, odd I thought

By the time we reached home I realized that he was hustling “the boss” out so that he could get down to some serious partying. I felt just like Grandma Moses.

Once home I took my cranky self up to get ready for bed as Joe headed down to his man-cave. After shedding my slinky black dress and heels (and still mumbling obscenities under my breath) I headed into the master bath to wash up.

And that’s when my nail broke.

Need I share the murderous invectives that filled the air at this point? I thought not. Once I was able to regain a modicum of self-restraint my logical brain directed me to the new bottle of nail glue in my cabinet. I grabbed the bottle and struggled to open it. The cap was a real challenge – more so than usual. I thought something dropped out when the cap came off – but could find no evidence so I sloughed it off.

I spent the next few minutes – while the glue was drying on my nail – performing a few more of my nighttime ablutions. And then I was ready to depart from the bathroom. Only I couldn’t. The heel of my right foot was glued firmly to the floor tile.

I spent the next twenty minutes frantically trying to extricate myself so my husband would not laugh himself into cardiac arrest when he walked in. To no avail. Pulling my foot away would have resulted in the heel staying behind – not an option. I was unable to reach any potential tools that might help me scrape my foot off of that tile. So I gave up.

My next strategy was to begin yelling to Joe for help. Also to no avail. For about 45 minutes I gave periodic shouts in his general direction. None were heard down two flights and drowned out by his bevy of electronic gadgets – each noisy in its own way. Thank god I hadn’t set myself on fire!

I couldn’t even sit on the side of the tub to rest my weary bones as I waited to be rescued from my own bathroom. Finally I heard Joe’s footsteps on the stairs. I steeled myself for his reaction. Based on the cumulative effect of all of the indignities I had suffered that evening – his very survival would depend on his response – that or he’d have to leave me glued to the floor!

God bless him, he walked in, sized up the situation and headed to the garage for Goo Gone. Within 5 minutes I was a free woman. And life was good again!

And then we both laughed until we cried.

It’ s not like that 21st birthday that you look forward to with great anticipation. Turning 50 isn’t something I stress over (the alternative is worse) instead it’s a birthday I look at with little interest. I didn’t even give it much thought until I got your mailing today.  Frankly, I would rather not have it thrown in my face that because of it I’m eligible for membership in AARP.  I know you’ve tried to update your image and you’ve shed the “American Association of Retired Persons” moniker, but much of the residual baggage remains — at least for me.  I still think of you as the old people group. I don’t feel old. I don’t act old. I’m not thinking of retiring or even slowing down. I still have lots to learn, lots of big plan, lots I want to do. 50 isn’t what it used to be. Come on…it’s like everyone says –50 is the new 40.  I have no intention now, nor in the foreseeable future, of asking for the “senior” discount.

Try me again in 10 years.  Maybe I’ll feel differently by then.

There are also a tremendous number of tools out there that help us to manage, review, schedule and automate these communications. What’s important to remember is that while these tools are great for helping you manage your inputs and outputs, there’s still no substitute for true, authentic communication.

The introduction of all these convenience tools is what makes it increasingly apparent when you’re seeing an honest, real message versus an automated, robotic one. This was most recently illustrated to me by two responses I got to a tweet I made regarding my receipt of the book, “Delivering Happiness” by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh.

I said:

I received two responses from that tweet. One from @Zappos_Service and one from @FedExDolores. Here’s what they said:

Guess which one was (most likely) automated? Sorry, Dolores, you lose.

If you look at the full Twitter stream for both the Zappos account and the FedEx account, it is immediately apparent which one is either manned by a human or at least manned by a human who doesn’t have a standardized response template. Zappos, you win. You can also see that the Zappos account is typically signed off by a person at the end of a day and then re-signed into at the beginning of a new day by announcing who is at the helm. FedEx has tried to embody a specific “person” into each named account instead of having a singular customer

I’ve experienced this with FedEx’s Twitter robots before. I posted a photo in which I used the term, “FedEx” and got a robo-response:

Given the excellent usage of spacing in that message, I felt it was safe to assume a human didn’t do it. Sure enough, when looking at the full tweet stream of FedExLina’s account, it looked very robotic to me.

Now, I know that FedEx is likely getting a lot more mentions on Twitter than Zappos is, so they have a lot more responding to do. Even so, as a customer, I really don’t feel any better about getting some message from you if it’s just some automated (or template) response. This type of communication is the same thing as a robo-call, a form letter, or anything that takes the true, honest, person-to-person factor out of a human-to-human exchange.

If you’re going to automate something, don’t try to make it appear human.

That’s where we get to authenticity. A robo-response that tries to appear as a human response is NOT authentic. A robo-response that is clearly an automated reply IS authentic. I don’t have a problem with automated responses. They can be very helpful. But when you receive an out-of-office reply from someone, it says so. It doesn’t say, “Brian – thanks for emailing me. I look forward to replying to your message as soon as I can. I appreciate you taking the time to send this to me. Have a great day!”

What I’m left with after these two simple responses is a better feeling form Zappos and a worse one form FedEx. Sure, this is little stuff in the grand scheme of things, but I believe this is the little stuff that matters. My gut reaction to Zappos moving forward is going to be a little bit better, and to FedEx, a little bit worse.

Decide what approach you’re going to take with your personal and business communication. Make sure it’s real and authentic. Just don’t try to be something you’re not.

I received these two responses approximately an hour later from my old friend FedExLina:

Seems Lina is still having punctuation and spacing problems. I’m going to ask @FedExLina how @FedExDolores sent me the first message today if she’s out of the office and see what she says. I think this helps drive my point in that it’s pretty easy to see through false authenticity. Stay tuned.

And her response:

I would be “happy to glad” if this whole thing didn’t make me feel bad for such a lost customer service opportunity.

The troubled cashback program began in May 2008, during the MSN Live days, when Microsoft was hoping that cashback incentives would help lure more people to its search engine. The Cashback program was a way for advertisers to bid for search advertisements by offering online shoppers rebates whenever they found items through the Bing search engine.

Bing remains a distant third (same as in 2008) in the search engine race and according to Microsoft, Cashback didn’t move the needle enough to be worth the cost. “After a couple of years of trying, we did not see the broad adoption that we had hoped for,” Yusuf Mehdi, a senior vice president at Microsoft, said in the blog. “We are taking all the learning from the effort and putting it into some new programs.”

Cashback was launched on the basic premise that monetary rewards is the primary driver of activity and could give Mirosoft an edge over rival Google  — but it turned out that, in everyday practice, it just wasn’t the case.

Did you know that the last time Microsoft’s online division actually made money was 2005? And even then it wasn’t much. And the situation has gone from bad to worse. In late April Microsoft revealed that its Online Services Division lost $711 million in the first three months of this year alone. That’s a $2.8 billion loss annual run rate!  And according to this, since 1998, Microsoft’s online division has lost over $8 billion.  Yikes!

Microsoft has never gotten much traction in the online game. It’s still a behemoth in the tech/software world, but not nearly as powerful as it once was (Apple recently surpassed it in market cap) and it is losing marketshare. According to some estimates, its share by 2011 will dwindle to nearly half of what it was in 2000. Interesting stats from Silicon Alley Insider on Microsoft’s crumbling empire.

The game today has changed for everyone…and will continue to change at an increasing rapid pace. No one can move forward by resting on past successes, that’s like trying to drive by looking in the rear view mirror. It doesn’t matter how powerful you were or are, tomorrow you could find yourself an also ran if you’re not willing to take an objective look at yourself and then take the risks to completely reinvent yourself in a way that is relevant to your customers.

I was listening to a local station detailing their upcoming concerts and accompanying paraphernalia.  They urged their listening audience to watch for the mass quantities of merchandise bearing the Rolling Stones lips and tongue logo.  My first thought was “how will we be able to tell it from the Dairy Queen lips?”  And suddenly it all became clear.  Dairy Queen’s lips are startling reminders of the provocative lips and tongue logo designating the Rolling Stones.

Is this a coincidence?  Good question.  It starts to become suspect when you consider the fact that the Dairy Queen target audience consists of the parents of today, who are the later baby boomers and the gen Xer’s, along with all of their children.  The same folks who were – and still are – the avid admirers of the Stones and everything that they represented.  It came as quite a jolt.  And mostly because I had to ask myself “has the big adventure for the “Stones era” parent ceased to be the wild and reckless bashes of their youth and instead evolved into a family outing to fill their burgeoning bellies with the new big excitement in their lives – ice cream?”  Oh that would be sad.

We’re no longer in a world where the press release is the way to get trending stories. Today, the blogosphere and social networks are where the news is being made and broadcast. Bloggers and social media participants and their followers are criticizing and praising the brands and companies that they like. Since this is where the readers are, you must not be surprised that this also is where the reporters are.

Since 2004, the blogosphere has rapidly grown and whether you as PR professionals or marketers like it, it is providing a place for news, opinion and reviews that have not been “spun” by a PR professional. The most powerful and successful bloggers can clearly and articulately discuss their opinions on a product, service or company with credibility. They’re often well-known in their industry or seen as an influential person whose opinion matters.

As a writer, when I’m looking for a story idea, it is not uncommon to search online to find trending story ideas and potential sources from these credible bloggers. I can find ideas, sources and potential facts and figures (that, of course, need to be verified) easily all over social networks. I search for trusted bloggers, Tweeters and websites whose information I know is credible.

What this means for the PR and marketing professionals of the world is that you can no longer bank on the standard press release. Yes, press releases have historically been the PR tool of choice. And, in some cases, they are still practical, but only if the content is timely, relevant, news worthy and has lots of potential interview sources quoted and opportunities for video, photo and audio. And, ultimately, if the topic is of interest to the reporter’s beat, column, current issue, episode, show or publication.

You should instead be focusing your efforts on generating relevant and timely content in a variety of mediums including on corporate blogs and social media accounts in all formats: print, video, photo and audio. Find stories within your organization that bloggers and reporters and editors alike can grab onto. Provide sources and quotes. Be visual.

Besides feeling a little genuine excitement about this store coming to town myself, the thing on my mind is how Trader Joe’s, which at its essence is a small grocery store, has such fans that are busy telling everyone they know about a future store coming to their neck of the woods.

I’ve been a fan for years, and a good friend of mine actually finds out today if he gets promoted to top dog at one of the stores in Tucson. I like them because they sell food I enjoy at a great price. And having worked in the grocery industry for nearly 10 years I appreciate how they do business. They just do things right. They also are a great place to work as well as shop. They sell a limited number of products in a small, efficient store and they focus on natural/organic items. The majority of their sales come from their own store brand.  They have a very defined operation, very minimal labor (for the grocery industry) and very dedicated customers. People are known to drive many miles for a trip to the store.

Where does the average business fit into the fan versus customer spectrum? When your customer leaves your store/office/location are they telling others about you or is it just another transaction?

Trader Joe’s is being welcomed into a community and there have been Facebook groups requesting that they come here for over a year now. How many other food retailers enjoy that market position?

Now that we’re all excited, let’s see how it all shakes out. And how soon we start calling for additional locations to spend our money.

Yes, both Dawn and Tide have campaigns touting their endeavors to aid the world in times of catastrophe. Dawn is cleaning the furry and feathery little victims of oil spills and Tide is enabling disaster victims to clean their clothing. Both very noble enterprises.

I just melt when I see those adorable little creatures being bathed to remove the viscous oil that coats them. My heart breaks as I listen to the sweet music that accompanies the ritual washing. It’s just perfect – too perfect maybe. As the spot concludes I’ve generally reached the point where I’m wondering if this “bath scene” has been staged and if these poor little darlings have been doused with heavy oil so that Dawn can stake its claim to heroism. It doesn’t leave me with a warm feeling.

Tide, on the other hand, looks real. And they appear to let real people do the talking. These people manage to convey the true bliss of clean clothing when you’ve got nothing. And they give you a warm and fuzzy feeling toward Tide even though the spot is anything but perfect looking.

After viewing both spots on numerous occasions I’ve reached the conclusion that cleaning up after catastrophe isn’t neat and tidy. If you make it look too perfect to be real it tests my sense of credulity. And you never want to do that.

OK OK I get that this is all about the humor. And no one loves humor more than I. But very honestly, I want to feel a little brand pride in what I own – especially if it cost a bundle. And honestly, I’m starting to feel as though I’ll have to hide my Sienna so no one knows it’s mine.

When the ads run my first reaction is to laugh at these foolish people but my next thought is “Oh %#&*@@, am I one of them?”

The reserved line at 9am was a bit longer than I anticipated given so many people dissing the iPad. But it was a decent day, no one in line complained, they brought around coffee and the folks at the Apple store had the system down.  The blue-shirted folks were everywhere. And several buyers cheered as they walked out of the store. And we all cheered with them. Everyone was in a good mood. Within a little more than an hour we were in and out with our new toys

Got mine home, synced it to my Macbook and in minutes I was off and running.

My husband didn’t get off so easy.

Our iMac at home is about 3 years old and had been having some problems, so he couldn’t get his iPad to sync. After an OS upgrade, another couple trips to the Apple store to get an external hard drive and take the iMac to the genius bar, he was set.  And shockingly he never complained about the multiple steps he had to take. Frankly the entire day left a good impression on him about Apple. I had told him there was no way he’d get into the genius bar today, but he did, they took care of it and he was a happy camper. Pretty impressive given the stress the staff was under today (apparently they all had to get there at 5am as the truck only delivered the iPads at 5:30 this morning.)

Just another example of how Apple gets it right and builds their tribe. Lots of happy fans playing with their shiny new toys today. I know I sat out on the deck and played with my iPad all day until the battery died.  And only then did I consider that perhaps I should actually do something useful…like laundry.  Instead, I wrote a blog post.  I’ll do laundry tomorrow.

He was NOT a real man of genius...that campaign is brilliant, Mr way-too-much Paco Rabanne was not.

I had a weird experience today. A guy showed up in our lobby to give me a packet. I did not have an appointment with him. He told the woman who greeted him that someone from his office had said she was sending information over to me. True enough. I’d spoken to her about two weeks prior and told her to go ahead and send me her contact info. I did not tell her to reach back into the 70’s and send a Barney Miller look alike (replete with London Fog raincoat) who smelled as though he’d been assaulted by a giant bottle of Paco Rabanne to deliver that info. And yet she did.

I agreed to go out and retrieve said packet, although I was waiting for an important phone call. I should have gone with my usual plan of having the greeter explain that “no one gets in without an appointment.”

When I got to the lobby Barney decided to engage me in an unwanted conversation about how our business was going. My answers were not prolific.  Barney remained undeterred and proceeded to give me a report on the glowing health of his business – which I didn’t want. I rushed him out the door as soon as human decency would allow and returned to my office to await my call.

As I returned to my desk I began to notice an odd and overwhelming scent. That’s when I realized that the Paco was all over my hands. Eeeewww!

These people will not be getting any business from me.

How is that possible? Didn’t they send this really personable guy to engage me and form a connection?  Isn’t that the best way to engage prospects – in the flesh?  Shouldn’t I be eagerly awaiting the first opportunity to work with Mr. Chemistry?

So where did they go wrong? Disrespect. Sending someone without my permission was a clear sign that they disrespect my time. They would rather trick me into an “in-person” meeting than approach me with honesty and take their chances. In addition, instead of just thanking me for interrupting my day to take the packet at his convenience he tried to parlay his intrusion into an impromptu meeting when I was clearly sending signals – both through the greeter as well as my body language and commentary – that this was not the day or time to “chat”. And on top of all of that his nauseating cologne intruded on my person by virtue of a simple handshake. Bad form Mister.

So now what do I think of their brand. I think they don’t get how to conduct business in a professional and appropriate way. And I think they’re not someone I would ever call when I have a need. Message sent, message received.

Ghirardelli is employing social media tactics, among other elements,  and encouraging chocolate fans to go to a micro-site (www.ghirardellimoments.com) and share comments/memories about when/where they enjoy eating the squares.  The comments are broadcast in New York’s Times Square and streamed live on the website.  I would imagine that the comments will be fodder for some future marketing efforts.  Fans can enter the sweepstakes and be eligible to win a number of prizes including a fabulous trip to one of four famous squares in the world, i.e. Times Square, Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco, etc.  A tour of major cities utilizing street teams is also a part of the campaign. 

 In the current economic environment people are looking for simple, affordable indulgences – chocolate is one of those.  In addition, leisure travel has taken a hit (leisure travel is still projected to be down throughout 2010 according to a variety of sources) so the opportunity to win a trip is extremely attractive and timely.  These factors that key in on the current consumer mindset,  joined with a dose of fun and creativity,  makes it an interesting campaign to follow.

 It is thematic, engaging, fun, sophisticated, relevant and an integrated initiative that fits the brand.  And when it’s all said and done, chocolate simply makes us smile, doesn’t it?

Click here to see what happens when you click unsubscribe. There’s no audio track, but it’s pretty easy to create your own.

Such a simple idea, yet full of personality. And it sure gets talked about.

Surprising. Clever. Smart. Very smart.

In the 44 films in 2009 that topped the box office for at least one weekend, an Apple logo or device could be seen in at least 18 of them. (That’s almost 41%.) In some, Apple products even eclipsed their human scene partners.

The Awl put together a great piece examining the popularity of Apple products in film. Not editors, effects specialists, composers, or photographers using Apple products, or even celebrities owning iPhones–but the insane frequency with which Apple shows up in movies, without it being official product placement.

Apple’s Greatest Cinematic Achievements from The Awl on Vimeo.

What struck me almost immediately was a variation in weather patterns that had a huge effect on my mood.  When you woke up in Connecticut and it was raining – you were in for a rainy day – or two – or three – as much as a week.  In Nebraska that’s rarely the case.  There have been many days when I’ve headed into the office with full rain regalia, hunkering down for the dreary day ahead.  And quite frequently by the time I’d read my initial influx of e-mails the sun was shining high in the sky.  Other days it took as long as until lunchtime before the sun poked through the clouds and dried up all the rain.  An entire rainy day is just not all that common – not to mention a rainy week.

Then there were those cloudy and dank days in the Northeast.  No real threat of rain but no chance of sun.  We had whole weeks of that sometimes.  When that happens in Omaha, the population is totally nonplussed.  They’re just not used to it.

And when you combine this sunshine phenomenon with the fact that we are at the western most edge of the central time zone – which means we hang onto to our sunshine longer into the night – we could take the crankiest Northeasterner and turn them into a purring pussycat!  Just look at me!

When I first raised this point with my colleagues they said I was crazy.  “Omaha doesn’t have the most sunshine by a longshot” they anxiously pointed out.  That’s true.  Omaha has 60% sunshine and Hartford only 4% less at 56%.  Doesn’t seem as though it would make a huge difference – but it does.  And as far as those places that have as much as 90% sunshine like Yuma, Arizona.  I have no desire to fry an egg on my sidewalk during the month of June – Omaha is plenty hot enough for me!

Let’s face it.  Anyone who knows Marie enough to be positively influenced by her is certainly aware that her son died tragically.  And they probably have a little soft spot for her.

Your continuing to run these upbeat, bordering on giddy, spots is really in poor taste (sorry for the pun – I should take my own advice).  It shows a lack of sensitivity and caring.  And what is one thing we expect from the company that Marie endorses?  What is the price of entry for the company that will help us reclaim our lives and look our best?  You said it – caring!  How can I believe that you care about me when you clearly don’t even care about Marie?

And I need to know you care about me if I’m going to trust you.

AT&T and technology outsourcing and consulting company Accenture have already ended their sponsorships, while others, such as Procter & Gamble Co.’s Gillette and Swiss watch maker Tag Heuer, de-emphasized him in their marketing — a move to distance themselves from the world-famous athlete.

The CEO of Procter & Gamble said earlier this week that he doesn’t know whether Woods will ever appear in another Gillette commercial, saying the company did not need the “distraction” of using him in its advertising.

Woods does more harm than good as public sentiment against Woods is even worse now than when the scandal gained steam in December according to a new analysis by PR firm Gregory FCA.

Gregory FCA used data from Nielsen Online’s BuzzMetrics to gauge sentiment towards Woods across blogs, message boards, media sites and Twitter. The following chart may be hard to read, but the trend line is clear.

This chart reiterates what a beloved figure Woods was as attitudes toward him were almost universally positive before his downfall. Sentiment fell off the cliff after revelations of his adultery, but then started to improve as Woods stayed in hiding. After Woods delivered his public apology, sentiment turned even more sharply negative. The score of -1.2 is one of the lowest that Gregory FCA has ever seen for a celebrity, brand or company. Via Forbes Blog.

One organization saw an opportunity in all the “distraction”.  PETA, a group always on the prowl for something to get ink for their cause, tried to leverage the scandal to push their agenda by creating a billboard with a photo of Tiger and the line “TOO MUCH SEX CAN BE A BAD THING” with a message that continues “… for little tigers too. Help keep your cats (and dogs) out of trouble: Always spay or neuter!”

PETA intended to post the billboard near Woods’ Isleworth home in Windermere, Florida, but the golfer’s attorneys stepped in with a cease-and-desist order, according to PopCrunch.

The fact is, we all make mistakes. So do brands. And we all learn the hard way that people never listen more closely than when you admit failure. While there are lots of examples, recently we’ve seen two big brands own up to problems and mistakes and publicly apologize. In very different ways.

Friday Tiger Woods’ abject, and very rehearsed, press conference/public apology came off as as a bit insincere to me. It sounded painfully scripted and the fact that he took no questions from the eager reporters who have been specially selected to see him speak made it feel even more stilted. I read a snarky comment somewhere that the same George W. Bush media advisers who gave us Mission Accomplished were hired by Tiger to present the world with Emission Regretted.

Watch full press conference here.

If you’re thinking Tiger is just a man, not a brand, read the transcript of Tiger’s apology and you’ll note he details the specific consequences of his actions: “I hurt my wife, my kids, my mother, my wife’s family, my friends, my foundation, and kids all around the world who admired me.” In case you’re wondering, that last one is code for brand.

As Sally Hogshead said: … the Woods brand “was founded upon prestige, mystique,” she added, “and an aura of elusive untouchability,” but now “we all suddenly know more about his bottom-feeding behavior than we ever cared to.”

And then there’s Toyota. Toyotas have long been considered among the most reliable cars on the road. But it has had major problems the last couple months and its failure to stem its widening safety crisis has stunned consumers and experts who’d come to expect only streamlined efficiency from a company at the pinnacle of the global auto industry. It is now trying to rebuild consumer confidence after a recall that has extended to millions of cars around the world and tarnished the company’s reputation.

First came the apology.

Then the promise to fix it.

Can these brands survive the withering publicity? Will we forgive? Will we trust them again? After all, Toyota has made great cars and until recently was the most popular car brand on Earth. And Tiger Woods is a phenomenal golfer. Only time will tell. But in my humble opinion Toyota seems more sincere in their efforts to earn back our trust.

Aside from the fact that  the media can’t seem to get enough of another corporation caught short by the outraged tweeting masses, this should be yet another wake up call of the speed by which screw ups travel and escalate today.

As an instant viral publishing tool, Twitter is often the first place we hear a rumble of something big — where news (or rumors) break — so it’s followed closely followed by the mainstream media that then “vets” the info. This summer I was in a store in Tahoe when someone in the store read a tweet that Michael Jackson had died. We all headed for a TV or went to CNN on our phones to verify the info. Not everything trending on Twitter is accurate — remember Goldblum?

Bad personal experiences for people we like at the hands of corporations is David and Goliath stuff. And we consumers love those stories. We love to rant about injustice. We can’t get enough of it.

Twitter is the early warning siren and reaches well beyond those actively engaged on Twitter — it is closely followed by the media and bloggers and it can explode the customer complaint horror stories many times faster than what companies previously suffered just at the hands of a few irate bloggers (remember Dell, Kryptonite) to potentially devastating effect.

Southwest is a company that has been active and strong in the social space. They’ve handled difficult situations well.  But they’re not immune. They just found out what happens when you piss off a guy with a rabid fanbase and a Twitter account with 1.6M followers. Smith has a nimble intellect and savage wit and his tweets and SModcasts are entertaining.  One of his tweets had me laughing out loud:  “You [messed] with the wrong sedentary processed-foods eater!” But chances are Southwest didn’t enjoy this exchange as much as the rest of us.

If the arbitrary nature of this online customer movement seems unfair, too bad.  Get used to it. The genie is not going back in the bottle.

How companies succeed in the future will depend on how they embrace and navigate this new socially-empowered customer culture. The answers don’t lie in merely having a company Twitter account. And they definitely can’t be solved purely through social media monitoring. These are just tools. Tools that let you listen. And respond. The key is what a company learns from the listening, how it applies those learnings and then how it communicates those learnings to its customers that will rescue its reputation and make it a stronger company.

For Smith, the publicity may be a windfall given his new movie “Cop Out,” opens in theaters Feb. 26.

When I read the announcement here and here, my first thought was, big deal, how is this different from what anyone (not just Verizon customers) can do with Cellfire?  Giving them the benefit of the doubt that maybe there was something unique in the announcement, I went to check out the Verizon website promoted in its news release…and then I laughed! Hard.

I land on the Verizon site and what do I see? My Cellfire account that I registered with my Sprint number after my previous coupon guilt trip.

Verizon page (that I didn't log into) at top. My Cellfire account at the bottom. Hummmmmmm

I AM a Cellfire user, but I’m NOT a Verizon customer, I’m a Sprint customer.

So Verizon…can you hear me now? I’m still chuckling.

Peeps…a cultural phenomena. It’s hard to believe they were introduced half a century ago. I totally remember looking forward to them every year in my Easter basket. The lovely sugar-coated gooey goodness. Even though you had to open the entire pack of 12 to get 1 out, and the others solidified in a matter of hours, we loved our Peeps. AND we loved messing with them. We nuked them in the microwave, we put them through torturous “science experiments,” and we glued them in ways that any avant garde artist would bite his hand in envy…

Just Born, maker of the chick- and bunny-shaped marshmallow Easter favorites, is officially opening the first store devoted to Peeps last month. The shop, located in a mall near Washington, D.C., sells over 800 Peeps products, including plush toys, china, and even a fancy hand-blown glass Peep.

First Peeps store in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

http://www.peepresearch.org

Apple (and Steve Jobs) is the poster child for bold. It seems everywhere you turn today you encounter another story of triumph for Apple, a company that has certainly faced its share of difficulty.

Via Flickr - Illustration: Tsevis Visual Design

Think about this — back in 1997 when Jobs went back to Apple, it was an underdog. A mere 6 months from bankruptcy when it moved forward to boldly position itself as the “Think Different” company. In 2000 Apple missed its financial targets, sending its stock price plummeting to the equivalent of $7 in today’s prices. Yet in 2001, as global markets fell apart and the world headed into recession, Apple boldly launched iTunes, Mac OS X, the first Apple retail stores, and the first iPod.

The obsession with innovation and focus on amazing design never faltered. Everything about Apple and its products is simply cool. (I still have the packaging from the U2 iPod I bought years ago and my husband finally tossed the box from our two year old iMac.)

Fast forward eight years to 2009, a tough year by all measures, and a time where much of the computer industry struggles, yet Apple reported that it had sold a record 3 million Macs in its fiscal fourth quarter — a 16.4% increase compared with just 2.3% growth in the PC market. And it has held a higher price point and margin, despite the recessionary environment and the increasingly competitive landscape. Plus the revenue from the computer industry is a shrinking piece of its overall revenue pie given Apple shipped over 22 million iPods during its first quarter (up 3 percent from last year) and 4.4 million iPhones.

Here’s another one of those “Ohhhh I wish I had done that!” head slaps. If you had invested $1,000 in Apple ten years ago (Dec 1999), today it would be worth over $7,500.  (Crap. I wish I had done that, but I was licking my wounds from taking a beating on some dot coms stocks.) Today, Apple is valued at about $170 billion, slightly more valuable than Google and a far cry from the $5 billion valuation in 2000.

For the second year in a row, Apple is the #1 most admired company in the world and recently Steve Jobs was named Fortune’s CEO of the decade. Just today, I read that Macs held the top three spots on Amazon’s “Most Wished For” laptop list this holiday, as well as the top four spots on the desktop computer wish list.

Apple didn’t create personal computers, but it made them personal.  It didn’t create digital music, but it did create a cultural icon.  It didn’t invent the smartphone, but it made one that people lust after and are willing to stand in line for hours to buy.

With 275 retail stores, a 73% share of the MP3 player market, and the undisputed leadership position in innovation when it comes to mobile phones, Apple and its CEO are no one’s idea of underdogs anymore.

It’s been a difficult year, one where my natural reaction has been to pull back and play it safe, even when I know in my heart that now it the time to take risks. I’ve kept moving forward, and taking risks. But it’s been hard. And every so often, I need a boost to keep going.  Today I needed that energy boost again (not to mention I was desperate for a hair color — which is why I had two hours of uninterrupted time to catch up on some reading in the first place.) Whenever I read about the journey of Apple, I feel re-energized and more determined than ever to take bold steps.

BTW, I know I enjoyed this laugh, so I bet you will too. Check out this article titled the Great iPhone Death Watch. I bet there are a few people listed here with a little crow on the menu.

 HBR 11-13-09

Twitter Users by Age
The majority of Twitter users are 35 years old or older. And 45-54 year olds are 36 percent more likely than average to visit Twitter, making them the highest indexing age group, followed by 25-34 year olds, who are 30 percent more likely. Look at the index of 65+.  It’s higher than 18-24.  In fact, in February, 5.2 percent of users were 65 or older.

And the older demos are the ones fueling the growth.  And growth it is.  After months of double-digit growth, traffic to Twitter.com jumped dramatically in March, growing a staggering 131% to 9.3 million visitors. That’s 5 million more visitors than in February!  Fueled in part by celebrity “tweeters” like Oprah, who just started,  as well as substantial mainstream media attention, Twitter ranked as the top-gaining property for the month of March according to comScore.

Twitter Unique US Visitors
The media focus on Twitter the last few months has been heavy. It seems you can’t get through a typical newscast anymore without some mention of Twitter.  Tweets are all over CNN. Some have incorporated Twitter into the live broadcasts.

It’s become part of our culture. Our vernacular.  Tweet. Tweet this.  ReTweet. It’s even become part of talk show monologues. David Letterman spent 5 minutes talking about Twitter (and of course making fun of Ashton Kutcher’s Twitter success) on his April 24th show. He called it the beginning of the end of civilization.

Like it or not, Twitter is changing many things,  including the way the news system operates, further blurring the lines between average citizens and journalists. Timely tweets from those on the scene of events like Flight 1549′s landing in the Hudson have turned average citizens into journalists.

Beyond the fact that social media services like Twitter and Facebook are becoming entwined with the business segment, is the fact that the knowledge to understand and use a micro-blogging service like Twitter is no longer confined to the young as a greater portion of the population has grown older using the Internet in the past 15 years.   And it could be that a comfort level with technology will continue to change the way new technologies leap the chasm to reach critical mass.

There’s confusion, trepidation, and a general feeling of being overwhelmed.  Add to that the pressure to get more bang for your marketing buck in today’s economic climate and the anxiety increases.

More and more companies need or want to expand their visibility online.   To be found where people look.  That often means tapping the potential of social media, but they don’t know how to enter the conversation or are paralyzed because of a stumble.  We’ve heard tales of being banned from Digg, kicked off Facebook, deleted from Wikipedia, stumped by Twitter, slammed by bloggers or caught off guard by employee comments in cyberspace.  We hear the the same question over and over, “What do I do?” And the dozens of books, hundreds of articles and thousands of web pages dedicated to the subject only seem to make it feel more overwhelming.

So we’ve developed this series of seminars, starting with social media marketing, to go beyond theory and platitudes to practical applications to answer your questions and give you tips you can put to work immediately.  We also have sessions scheduled that will focus on increasing your visibility on search engines and on smart marketing tips to turn data into intelligence and insights. You’ll take away not only a better understanding, but also a little peace of mind  and some tools to get you started.

Why the Sausage Factory name?  Because it fits (and it sounded better than Bozell Seminars).  People once referred to marketing like a recipe for soup — a little of this, a little of that, add a little seasoning, simmer it for a while and you’ve got a meal.  Now it’s not nearly so neat or orderly and time to simmer…fat chance.  It’s all about now.  And piecemeal doesn’t cut it anymore.  It has to all be ground together to create something cohesive and tightly integrated.  It really is like making sausage. It’s messy.  But at the end of the day, it’s much tastier and more popular at parties because it’s centered on the consumer.  Could the name Sausage Factory raise a few eyebrows?  You bet.  But that itself is part of what the marketing game is about today.  To have a voice, a point of view, something that might be worth talking about.  Check it out:  www.sausagefactoryseminars.com or on Twitter at www.twitter.com/SausageFactory.

The Barry White-esque voice and overly cheesy graphics are just bad enough to be kinda good.  Plus, for just $3.99 you can enjoy the flame-broiled qualities of the Whopper calorie-free.  Perhaps a thrifty valentine gift for your burger-loving friends?  I’m not sure it sells more Whoppers – unless the smell of it makes you continuously hungry.

It feels good to feel good. Hearing the speeches and media commentary was great, but looking at the faces of people lining Pennsylvania Ave, or standing among the 1.5 million plus in our capital and seeing the excitement was what really struck a chord in me. The reminder of what, as a country, we have accomplished in the last 45 years.

Hearing people say “he’s so cool” and knowing they mean style, not detachment, seems so strange.  When was the last time anyone referred to our President as “cool”?  When was the last time you saw thousands of people proudly wearing pop art t-shirts with the President’s face (beyond campaign staffers/supports)?

Psychologists, for months, have been talking about how our emotions affect the economy.  With all the negative media, consumer confidence has been at a low. And business in general is heavily affected by consumer mindset; some 70% of the gross domestic product (GDP) is driven by the consumer.  Negative news makes us feel fearful, and upset and angry…which can’t help but impact the economy in a negative way.

So…are we emotionally buoyed enough with hope and optimism to give the economic recovery a jump start?  The cheers as Obama walked (gutsy by the way) down Pennsylvania seems like a decent start.

Here’s to tomorrow!

For now, it’s an employers market.  There’s a larger supply of talent than there is demand for employees.  But, as the economy rebounds, we’re likely to see a quick shift back to an employees’ market.  Those who may have stayed in jobs where they weren’t completely satisfied, start a wave of turnover as job options become more readily available.

While there are tons of theories on the best ways to assess the emotional connection employees have with a company’s brand and culture, I have to say Zappos uses a technique that’s pretty simple – and pretty compelling.  Check it out. 

I’d say it’s a pretty good way to determine which ones might just be there for the shoes.  http://discussionleader.hbsp.com/taylor/2008/05/wy_zappos_pays_new_employees_t.html

In visiting their website, the spots are not featured; however the “G” is prominent on the original Gatorade bottle and the products/sub brands reflect new names that coincide with videos that have been released since the launch.  www.gatorade.com

 Advertising Age reported on January 7 and 12 that it is a risky yet slow building campaign.  It appears, that based on online conversation and views on YouTube that people are talking about it.  If that is the case, then the campaign is off to successful start.  But where will it go?

The question begged is brought up in the January 7 Advertising Age article, quoting Matt Cutler, Visible Measures, “It is very lightly branded, arguably not branded at all.  And there seems to be some indication that the more you leave things open to conversation, the more conversation will occur.  In this creative, they chose to leave lots of room for conversation, but the risk is people seeing this and not knowing it’s associated with the Gatorade brand.”

That’s the big question, how much will be left to conversation, is it too much room – and what additional integration and messaging will be added – and most importantly, will the confusion in some consumers minds be resolved to the brand’s benefit?  Only time and the unfolding of the brand strategy will tell.  Keep watching!

Electronics manufacturer JVC will ring in 2009 with an advertising campaign that makes consumers the stars of its new 19- by 34-foot high-definition LED electronic billboard in Times Square on New Year’s Eve.

Steve Bumstead, PixelFire Productions’ founder, designed the technology that makes it possible. Dubbed Pix-it, the application integrated in the digital billboard lets people take still photos from a cell phone and upload them to nyc@jvcnewyear.com, where they sit in a holding area on the Web site until manually approved.

Bumstead plans to oversee the project from across the street in Clear Channel Spectacolor’s office in Times Square. He will personally review and approve each photo before displaying it for three seconds as part of the Happy New Year’s Eve animation message on JVC’s sign.

JVC took the wraps off the new sign earlier this month. It’s being promoted by the company as the first 720-line progressive big screen in Times Square, with a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio and 1280 by 720 resolution supported by 1,007 light-emitting diode (LED) modules.

The screen will run consumer-generated video, but Bumstead–who has worked with film and digital displays for many years–said technical reasons stopped PixelFire from setting up the platform to accept clips. Video uploaded to the electronic billboard that Clear Channel Spectacolor manufactured would take longer to proof because of the large files.

Partygoers who upload photos are emailed a hyperlink and a redemption code that allows them to sign onto a special site and retrieve a copy of the photo as it appeared on JVC’s billboard. The “screensaver, desktop, wallpaper kind-of-thing” provides a memento of their night in Times Square on New Year’s Eve 2009, Bumstead said. “They’ll share the photo with friends and soon a whole bunch of people will have Happy New Year from JVC sitting on their desktop.”

Bumstead hopes the campaign turns viral, since people will have an option to share the photos. Licensing and release issues stopped PixelFire from building in search options for people to view other photos on the site. A project similar to this one, which would cost between $10,000 and $30,000 to pull off depending on the complexity, typically take two months to put together. The Renton, Wash.-based company, however, managed to turn around the campaign in much less time.

PixelFire has produced large-scale projects for Times Square displays in the past. In 2006, the company teamed with Campbell-Ewald to produce Chevrolet’s display atop One Times Square, Times Square’s first video-analog clock.

Over the last few years, we’d changed a lot on the inside.  We’d been actively engaged and agressive in retraining our people, re-looking at the way we operate and changing our processes.  So from the inside, we looked pretty good. 

But as I got into the phase of the process that included reviewing our external marketing and communications programs, one of the first things I looked at was our web site. And looking with a fresh set of eyes, I was mortified to realize that…we were wearing Mom Jeans. OMG!  That was so not us.   Another major kick in the face was that we are, by far, our own worst client. As the saying goes, the cobbler’s kids have no shoes.  

How had we let our external marketing get this bad?  We would never let this happen to a client.  Why did we neglect ourselves?  The best explanation (excuse) I could come up with is that…we suffered from Mom syndrome.  Everything else came first.  Clients.  Employees.  Vendors. Bills.  Sleep.  You name it.  Our own self worth/positioning was at the very end of a long line of needs and there never seemed to be enough time to go around.  

That big A-HA, slap-in-the-face wake up call that indicated our internal brand was out of sync with our external image came late last summer.  With that realization came the urgent desire to fix it.  I was on a mission.  A crusade.  Some in the office would say…a rampage…to get our proverbial sh#t together on the marketing front.  Now! 

So we took down our old web site (it was so old that hackers had already done a number on it anyway and we were having to band aid it just to keep it running) and redirected it to our publication site (temporarily I thought at the time).  I was gung ho to have a new site up by early fall.  As part of an overall marketing plan with efficient systems to keep it all fresh. 

We were all in agreement.  We were passionate. Ready to go.  Best intentions.  But reality interceded, again.  The deadline was driven by this basic question…”Do I put client work aside to do Bozell stuff instead?” Hummmm.  The responsible agency principal in me said — no, clients still come first. So an early fall deadline became Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving became December 9.  But finally, we did it.   After several long, late nights we finally are able to launch this phase of our makeover.  But we did so in a way that gives us immense flexibility to keep it fresh without hassle.  Leveraging multiple databases in the backend, a creative archive system  to house work and blog technology for some content sections enables our staffers to post and provide updates easily. 

So even though clients will always come first, when we do have a few free minutes, we can actively market and engage rather than merely think about it.   And hopefully never have to look in the mirror again and see Mom jeans.

While blogging is a hobby for some, a job for others, it ultimately shapes opinions, matters to readers and can drive brand value.  Blogging is increasingly popular and influential amongst the 18-29 year-olds.  As a matter of fact, according to a study conducted by SNCR and Middleberg Communications, 87% of 18-29 year-olds believe that bloggers have become important opinion-shapers, versus 69% of 50-64 year-olds (still a large number).

The moral of the story is – be actively involved in online conversations, be aware of what is being said about your brand.

The agency has enjoyed particularly robust growth in the last several years, as the expansion of cable ad interconnects allows the NCC to reach 99 percent of wired cable homes in some 132 markets.

Jointly owned by three of the nation’s largest MSOs (Comcast, Time Warner Cable and Cox Communications), the New York-based NCC reps all of the major cable operators, as well as DirecTV and Verizon’s FiOS TV.

“This is a proud day,” said Greg Schaefer, NCC president, by way of announcing the milestone. “The confidence and support that our client and ad agency customers have show is a testament to the special value they place on cable television’s array of programming, geographic and consumer targeting, and exclusive digital advertising platforms.”