www.abduzeedo.com
www.kareemrizk.com
www.chrispiascik.com

Jeremy

- Check out online T-shirt retailer Threadless on Twitter — twitter.com/threadless. With more than 1.2 million followers opting-in to receive its 2-4 tweets per day, can you imagine how effective this $6 million company’s Twitter promotions are? Begin following your peers and competitors and study their moves closely. You’ll see many of them on Facebook’s Fan Pages, which are represented nicely by the Victoria’s Secret effort at facebook.com/vspink. The company does an excellent job creating the perception that its Facebook fans are “insiders” with exclusive access to promotions, discounts, and information, and that “exclusive” circle is fast approaching 1.5 million fans.

all photographs by Katie Hays/NPR

The other morning I sat down at my computer and opened my browser. My homepage is NPR. As always, I lightly perused the headlines. What I saw that day truly affected me.

Eric Sheptock is homeless in Washington, D.C. but in spite of his difficult circumstances he’s using every resource available to him to advocate for those similarly disadvantaged. Though void of a permanent residence, he maintains his blog, a Facebook page, and a Twitter account in the hope that he can raise public awareness about the plight the homeless face in D.C. and around the country.

We often think of the internet as a free medium, available to everyone, and seemingly unlimited in its scope. Personally, I use the internet everyday. I have it at home and my employer provides it to me for free. It’s widely regarded as necessary by almost every industry at this point. I’ve taken this for granted.

Not only do I have a greater appreciation for the access I have to information but I’m becomming more and more aware of how people are successfully interacting. The concept of community has come full circle and although at times it seems that advances in technology further remove us from nature and one another, I’d have to disagree. We continue to become exponentially more connected. We are moving as a group. And like a school of fish, a swarm of bees, or a flock of sparrows we are propelled forward by what appears to be intuition and mutual imitation. One out of the mass has to make the first move however. Eric Sheptock is an innovator in his community and his movement is causing some of the rest of us to turn with him.

What can we in the advertising industry gather from Eric Sheptock?

1.) Social media is a force. It is an immediate connection with your audience.
2.) Social media is accessible. Everyone is equal online and opinions matter.
3.) Social media is empowering. A mass audience no longer has to be paid for.
4.) Social media is loud. A voice from the streets is speaking

-Andrew

The NPR story is here.
Eric’s blog is here.

The Birds from Adele Turner on Vimeo.

GM is owning it. It’s a bold move but it’s probably all they have left at this point. They are gripping with both hands and thrusting their bankruptcy up over their heads in hopes of reshaping public opinion. Let’s hope that they can accomplish all they say they will. It seems daunting but one of the steps toward recover from any severe problem, so I hear, is acceptance. So here’s to GM. May they steadfastly go forward on their road (pardon the pun) to recovery.

GMreinvention.com
Here’s the website GM setup to accompany the new public relations push. Very clean and loaded with social media connections. I’m sure they though long and hard about how they were going to go forward. This speaks very highly of the power of social media.

-Andrew

For many years, people thought they had spend a lot to fully exploit their time off. The truth is, stacations are proving that having fun is as simple as renaming the boring things we do. This is all much to the joy of local libraries, museums, and public pools across the country. Or as I call them – reading adventure zones, journeys through time, and beachside resorts.

Ryan's Fists of Fury c/o Chicago Trib.

I know Idaho has a lot to offer; I love Boise, too, but I’ve done it all. So, I’m thinking a staycation to Chino may be in order. After all, I can’t just stay in Boise all summer. California here I come!

What happens when you get bad press during this age of social media?  This article has some good ideas.  Mainly, I think we need to react as quickly as possible, and don’t hide our heads hoping it will go away.  It won’t, and it could grow into a monster.  React with honesty, sincerity and humility.  Shih Tzu happens, and even though you may not always come out smelling like a rose, you’ll probably recover, and learn some valuable lessons from the experience.

-Tom

The boy wonder himself, Kevin Arnold

I’ve been on a journey lately.  I wouldn’t necessarily call is one of a spiritual nature but close.  I was fortunate enough to come across a bootleg copy of The Wonder Years.  The entire series.  Every. Single. Episode.

This is epic and not only because the show was a phenomenal depiction of adolescence to the extent that it was awarded a Peabody award in 1989.  This is epic because it is a unicorn among television relics.  The digital compilation of every episode of The Wonder Years does not officially exist.  Unlike most long-running popular American TV sitcoms, The Wonder Years has still not yet been released on DVD as official season box sets due to the cost of securing the music rights. 

So beloved was this show that someone went to the trouble to create a menu and place each and every mesmerizing hour in all their VHS static and hiss sequentially.  This is why it’s epic.

What does this have to do with advertising?  Directly, not a whole lot.  I found a particularly interesting factoid the other day while perusing Wikipedia though.  And I quote:

The title of the show is adapted from a once widely-shown television commercial for Wonder Bread, in which viewers were urged to nourish their children with the product through their adolescence (“Wonder Years”).

How exactly this advertisement was to be the name of my favorite TV series is still under investigation.   I wonder if there are studies out there surrounding the subliminal effects of this “coincidence”.  Are there lingering effects.  Is the character of Kevin Arnold generic enough to earn the more modern title of “white bread”.  Are there subliminal ties to Wonder Bread consumption?  Did Wonder Bread see sales gains during the broadcaset tenure of the series?  Again, I quote:

The story is narrated by an older, wiser Kevin (voiced by Daniel Stern), describing what is happening and what he learned from his experiences in an alternately nostalgic and ironic tone.

Now that sounds like Wonder Bread to me. Nostalgic and ironic. Oozing with pre-adolescence; wholesome yet not entirely what could be accurately considered as food.  Delicious and satisfying all while being a caricature of what’s real.  

One thing is for sure.  I notice that there was a huge missed opportunity for product placement.  I never recall seeing a single loaf.  In this new era of reality programming and painfully obvious, forceful product exposure  I’m glad I never did.  Or maybe I was proselytized to every time Joe Cocker began the intro?  If that was the case I applaud the subtlety.  

We’re watching television differently these days, folks.  What are we missing?  Is it better?  I wonder.

-Andrew