July, 2010

Lights, Camera, Marketing

Video may have killed the radio star in the 80’s but these days its how stars are born. Take Justin Bieber for example. He was just a regular pre teen who liked to sing and post his videos on Youtube. Music execs discovered his vids and he signed under a major music label. In what seemed to be an overnight phenomenon the world had caught a case of “Bieber fever.” In fact Just the other day Justin Bieber’s music video for his hit single “Baby” was dubbed the most viewed Youtube video of all time.

From self taught makeup artist to comedians the popular video website has become a 15 minutes to fame express lane. You’re probably reading this wondering what in the heck this has to do with you and growing your business. Many companies have also been using video as another component to their marketing efforts. Video can help your company feel more relatable. By putting face to your organization people feel like you are down to earth and trustworthy. A short video on your website (when appropriate) can also add a dynamic element to help it stand out from the rest. If you are in a more creative field a more whimsical and kitschy approach can be taken. Go out and find yourself a camera, get strategically creative, and who knows your video could go viral and your company could be the next internet sensation.

Ibuzz

For the past month or so it seems like almost everyone I know was either pre-ordering or standing in line for the new Iphone4. The new phone claims to be a vast improvement from the old one. New features include a better battery life, thinner phone, not 1 but 2 cameras, and the ability to record HD videos. Sure some of these features are impressive but at the end of the day it’s only a cell phone.

Being that I’m a PC user and that I have a Droid phone any devoted Apple fan reading this is probably saying “She just doesn’t get it.” Perhaps it is the age old PC versus Mac battle that prohibits me from running to Apple’s website every time they drop a new product. Despite my tech preferences, working at a company that focuses on strategy & communications means I definitely have noticed that Apple does a fantastic job at creating buzz for their brand. I think a huge part of the company’s success is their clean design and sleek communications. Everything from their website, to their television ads, down to their packaging is always consistent and simple. Like I stated before the Iphone4 is just a cell phone but Apple makes us feel like it is a part of life as we know it. It doesn’t just have longer battery life; it has longer battery life so we can talk to our grandmothers longer. The phone doesn’t just shoot HD movies; it vividly captures your child’s first steps.

You don’t have to be selling an expensive high tech gadget to get people talking about your brand. Take into consideration banks.  They all do the same thing and give or take, offer the same services.  With campaigns geared towards the convenience of having the most ATMs available across the U.S. or telling us how savings accounts are how dreams start, banks are also selling us lifestyle versus financial services.

Whether it’s a new product or service you are launching just remember using strategic marketing geared towards your targets lifestyle and pairing it with beautiful design will always get you good buzz.

A Dose of Perspective

Because everyone could use a dose of perspective…

This narrow-angle color image of the Earth, dubbed ‘Pale Blue Dot’, is a part of the first ever ‘portrait’ of the solar system taken by Voyager.

This narrow-angle color image of the Earth, dubbed ‘Pale Blue Dot’, is a part of the first ever ‘portrait’ of the solar system taken by Voyager.

A reflection by Carl Sagan:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it’s different. Consider again that dot. That’s here, that’s home, that’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.