Gold

“I would say that my definition of social video marketing is as follows. Social media by definition is creating a visible online presence. However video social media puts a speed of intention behind your presence that no other media platform can accomplish. Social marketing is putting a face, a voice behind a name. If I am new to a social network site. The first thing I do is put up a video that says “I am excited to be apart of this site” and “this is who I am”

I recently stumbled upon this blog post on John Chow Dot Com regarding social video marketing.  I found it especially interesting considering how important social media is to our generation today.  The majority of people are visual and auditory learners.  By allowing someone to listen to their own words makes a connection that some could argue is much closer then even television.  An advantage of social media, allows the reader/viewer to post responses and reactions immediately to the site via video or text.

“Social Video Marketing is as follows:

1. To create a specific message to a specific audience in video form.
2. Requesting an emotional response in the form of a call to action from the video message.”

Another advantage of this, is that the views and metrics to measure how many people have been reached can be obtained with minimal effort.  This is a great way for one to get what they want to the right people and assure they are reaching their audience.  We are living in a new age of marketing, and social media is a necessity to reach todays on-the-go population.

So I was browsing some of my classmates blogs, and found this post which I thought was great on Lisas Blog.  I thought that add was extremely cool, and after reading it, agree that translink should start using these ideas as possible revenue generators.  Not only does this provide translink with a revenue generator, translink will also have more money to possible spend on problems that we are all facing today with the massive increase in use of public transit…

I’m sorry Vince, but you’ve got nothing on Billy Mays.  Mr. As Seen on TV was one of, if not the best, pitchmen of our time.  It all started in1992 when Mays became friends with rival salesman Max Appel, found of Orange Glo International.  Afterwards, Mays was hired to promote their notorious line – OxiClean.  Due to his success as a pitchman, Mays became CEO and Founder of Mays Promotions Inc, where he became the most sought after pitchman.  Throughout his career Mays was seen promoting anything from ESPN online services to Mighty Putty.  I grew up listening to this man screaming and shouting at me to buy whatever he had in his hands for three easy payments of something that ended with 95 cents before shipping and handeling.  Although I did not have the disposable income, or the need to purchase and of his products, I will always remember him and the products he marketed.  Mays marketed just more then the product he was holding.  He was a credible, friendly, successful salesman.  Thank you Billy for making commercials that much more enjoyable.

I was going to post a video of him actually selling something, but I found this extremely entertaining when I was searching online…  But now here his him actually selling his notorious OxiClean.

I stumbled on this article a while back and had it tabbed on my browser. I know the article is a little old, however, in a short time many of us will be waiting to see who the economist declares as the most liveable city. In the 2010 Liveability Rankings second to Vancouver sits Vienna, Melbourne, and Toronto.  “The ranking scores each city from 0-100 on 30 factors spread across five areas: stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. These numbers are then weighted and combined to produce an overall figure.”  This article preceded the 2010 Winter Olympics, and I am extremely curious to see how Vancouver will be ranked post olympics.

This prestigious award along with the “You Gotta Be Here” campaign, further opened the worlds doors and marketed Vancouver to the world.  With all of the positive press leading up to the games, any hiccup was a reporters dream.  Unfortunately, Vancouver faced serious criticism during and after the games.  Also with other recent news – like the resignation of Gordon Campbell – Vancouver and BC’s almost dream like qualities could possibly lose its magic.  Lets see how next years rankings turn out.

First of all I totally forgot about this until I saw an old add on TV the other day. Some could call this genius, others could call this a waste of effort.

The first thing that comes to my mind, is what is the point of reaching out to these customers who will never purchase fast food? Why waste your time and effort spreading the love and joy of the American hamburger? Burger King intended to show the current and potential Burger King consumers that when compared to its competitor McDonald’s infamous Big Mac, The Whopper was for the most part preferred.

Many, however, viewed this as racist and exploitative. As one would expect the poor foreigners and underprivileged people preferred The Whopper. Chance or coincidence? Although Burger King includes some instances where the Big Mac was preferred, for the most part, The Whopper was shown as the most preferred burger. If you notice, there are specific locations that prefer the Big Mac more frequently than The Whopper. Could this have something to do with the developed taste of the locals in a specific region. Are people more accustomed to a specific taste that made The Whopper or Big Mac more appealing?

Overall I do not really agree with this ad and think it is not only a waste of effort but racist – chew on that Burger King.

Although the Canadian Investing Conference is targeted to cover Investment Management topics, some of our Keynote Speakers, such as Bob Rennie, are experts in more than just investing.  Bob Rennie is the Director and Founder at Rennie Marketing Systems & Rennie Associates Realty.

The other day, I went down to his office on the boarder of China Town in Vancouver.  Let me just say – this guy is so cool.  After talking to him for an hour about real estate, marketing, life, Vancouver, and personal experiences Bob gave me a tour of his office.  Bob’s passion is modern art.  He has devoted half of his office space to his own personal modern art museum. Bob also serves on multiple museum boards such as the Tate Modern in England and is the face of many of the local arts boards in Vancouver.

Acting as Chair of an investing conference, I thought I would just expand my knowledge of Finance.  Oh boy – was I wrong.  Bob has sparked my interest in other topics, and has solidified my belief that all areas of business are integral to each other.  Seing how successful Bob is with both of his firms, marketing and real estate, has made me really appreciate the significance of all areas of business.

When searching for stuff to write my next marketing blog about, I stumbled across this strange photo in The Consumerist.  220 Countries… Last I knew, there are less then 200 countries.  So I decided to do my research… The UN only recognizes 192 countries while the US State Department only recognizes 194 countries.  Obviously there was some miscounting.  Where are these other 26 countries – maybe Verizon has secret locations ideal for a secluded vacation?

After realizing that, even as a Verizon customer, it made me think about other marketing ploys that use numbers to make their service look more appealing.  Living on my own now in an apartment, I have utilized the cable jack in my living room and am currently a Shaw customer.  Besides being greatly disappointed with Canadian cable, I remember hearing that Shaw offers a large number of basic cable channel.   How come every time I change the channel the message of “Unavailable” comes up saying that I do not have service for those channels.  So after getting up to about the high 900’s I realized that 50% of my marked channels by Shaw were music channels… Awesome Shaw, shame on me.

Seeing this advertisement and through my own experiences, especially with Shaw, I have come to the realization that numbers in marketing strategies are greatly deceiving.

William Shatner – is – the best – celebrity spokesperson – of all time.  William Shatner became the face of Priceline in 1997.  Priceline is a company that operates a commercial website that helps consumers secure discounted rates for airlines and hotels.

Shatner has done a series of commercials for Priceline, making the craziness of travel planning have a comical twist.

Priceline plays on the Shatner persona.  “You get the feeling that he’s very much in tune with the brand and the company.  That kind of longevity and dedication can be [very] effective,” says a top Priceline executive.

On top of Shatners involvement with Priceline he recently did a commercial for the computer game World of Warcraft:

Shatner’s comical yet serious tone makes anything interesting and personally catches my attention.

Point is, a little fun can go a long way.

Shatner – is – the best.

I love this show.  I can sit through the whole season as if it was just one movie.

HBO’s East Bound & Down stars Danny McBride as Kenny Powers, a washed up former professional baseball pitcher.  After winning the world series, Kenny’s career slowly faded away and forced him to return to his hometown middle-school as a substitute physical education teacher.

After a very successful first season, HBO has gone on to complete a second season.  To get the word out HBO posted these flyers on telephone and street poles:

Along with these flyers stapled around towns, HBO had people dressed up as Kenny Powers in Eastbound and Down baseball hats, curly mullets, and the classic #55 jersey.  The posters and “street teamers” brought direct attention to the show and provided the direct link to the website.

Marketing on the streets is not easy, however, HBO hit the ground running and did a comically fantastic job.

Kenny Powers is back.

Talk about utilizing social media!  Recently, Microsoft’s Bing ran a campaign on Zynga’s FarmVille facebook game.  If the Facebook user became a fan of Bing’s Facebook page, they received FarmVille cash.

FarmVille has 83 million monthly users and 28 million daily active users.  Only ~%1 participated in the one day event.

The incentive was located on the bottom of one of the FarmVille pages.  Bing’s Facebook page saw a 400,000 fan increase from to 500,000 fans in just one day!

The use of Facebook has shown to be an awesome marketing strategy, especially when the competition is Google.

Not bad Bing… Not bad at all.