2 Great Car Ads on What Brain is and How to Use It by Benz & VW

Car is so much more than a vehicle taking you from place A to place B. It is part of people's lifestyle and allows me to live life to the fullest. Here is a sample how car companies communicate us what their brand is all about and how they try to give that warm and fuzzy feeling inside making us feel “this is my car” on the top of all of the rational reasons why one car is better than the other one.

Mercedes-Benz Left Brain, Right Brain Ad Campaign

I love this ad campaign by Mercedes-Benz earlier this year. They created different pictures showing the difference between the left brain and right side of the brain and communicated us that Mercedes-Benz combines the latest technology and superior quality with innovation and emotion. The text in the ads read:

(Left:) “I am the left brain. I am a scientist. A mathematician. I love the familiar. I categorize. I am accurate. Linear. Analytical. Strategic. I am practical. Always in control. A master of words and language. Realis…tic. I calculate equations and play with numbers. I am order. I am logic. I know exactly who I am.”

(Right:) “I am the right brain. I am creativity. A free spirit. I am passion. Yearning. Sensuality. I am the sound of roaring laughter. I am taste. The feeling of sand beneath bare feet. I am movement. Vivid colors. I am the urge to paint on an empty canvas. I am boundless imagination. Art. Poetry. I sense. I feel. I am everything I wanted to be.”

Volkswagen Makes Art You Can Steal

I think VW used some serious brain when they created this fun campaign for Jetta GLI in Canada. VW Canada created several pop-up outdoor exhibits featuring limited edition long-exposure light paintings, created by taillights of the Jetta GLI as it moved. The paintings were hand numbered and VW encouraged people to ‘steal’ them. Soon the paintings started popping back up – but this time on social media networks people showing what they had done with their painting from the pop up exhibit. While I might not agree with the “stealing” message, I love how this campaign was done using both left and right sides of the brain and communicating how much fun VW Jetta is.

Edelman's 7 Rules of Public Engagement

In his 2011 PRSA Leadership Rally keynote address, “The Third Way – Public Engagement," Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman, gave the following counsel on engaging consumers effectively:

1. Listen with new intelligence.
There are new kinds of influentials now, conversation-starters. Cultivate relationships with them.

2. Create galvanizing ideas.
Find something that’s visual and simple. Don’t be biased against an idea. Be creative.

3. Know the socialized approach to media relations.
The media cloverleaf now consists of traditional media, hybrid media, social media and owned media. Broadcast tailored messages across each space with different spokespeople.

4. Create and co-create content.
SEO(Search Engine Optimization) is important, but it won’t help boring content. Use video and other multimedia. “I believe any company can be a media company.”

5. Participate in the conversation.
Conversations happen in real time, all the time. Go where the people are.

6. Build active partnerships for common good.
The new CSR mantra is “immediate justification.”  When consumers buy a product, they want to feel like they’re doing the right thing. Do your part to help.

7. Embrace complexity.
Issues are complex. Embrace a coherent way of thinking about them and analytical methods to identify and address problems.

3 Reasons Why Fluff Pieces are Good or Bad Marketing

Admit it, some of us like reading (or watching) fluff every now and again. Fluff takes us to a world that is not our own reality, and let’s us tune out for a bit.

Fluff pieces are stories that don’t have real value or strong content. They are stories that have fun stories, but serve no real purpose except to entertain.

As I venture into this world of PR and content marketing, learning and writing about best practices on blogging and writing headlines, I notice a lot of fluff out there. Fluff that has managed to receive 40+ “Likes” and reTweets. This made me think about fluff as a form of marketing. Good or bad practice, it is out there, and from the surface, seems to be effective marketing.

Does fluff work?
I have surmised that fluff can be a good marketing strategy, if just to capture initial attention.

Fluff is good marketing:

1) Makes you feel good – Fluff writing doesn’t require a lot of researched data and information. The story tends to be something cutesy or non-consequential. Like an FYI that you can take or leave.

2) Makes you forget current challenges – Alcohol marketers know all about making you forget your present troubles. Notwithstanding that alcohol in itself makes you do that anyway, savvy marketing lets you see the “fun” and party aspect of having a drink. With fluff, you forget, even for a brief moment, present problems. Think about the phenomenon of romance novels and soap operas for so many women.

3) Lets you escape – Tied into my point in #2 above, fluff promotes escapism. Look at an advertisement for a luxury auto. The shots are gauzy, the women and men are insanely hot, and the car makes you feel giddy – all while you are sitting in your living room eating a bowl of popcorn.


However, this is where it gets bad, literally.

1) You get lazy – Since they have no real substance, fluff tends to make you lazy. No fact-checking, no research just makes for a written piece that is sedentary. Since there are no real calls to action to motivate your audience, i.e. to look at your product, sign up for your newsletter, or to even navigate through your website. Fluff pieces are pure brain candy!

2) Doesn’t make you smart or learned – We all know that garbage in, garbage out. Though fluff pieces are fun and exciting, they don’t really bring the reader valuable information. As a blogger, and PR student, I love to read, but I hope to learn from what I read. This is where “content is king” rings true. Articles about Justin Bieber’s hair is pure fluffy fluff! Give me pointers on how to be a blogging sensation that brings me a million dollars by next Friday.

3) Shallow - This summarizes it all. There is nothing truly deep and abiding with a fluff article. The elements of escape from reality and into fantasy does not solve your target audience’s problems or make their lives better. Nothing gained and nothing lost.
The marketing takeaway is that fluff can produce the initial desired result: bring interest to a product or service. Fluff can also be good PR because it makes things look pretty and enticing. But fluff, as the word itself is defined does nothing more than to bring short-term attention. I say use the advantages of a fluff piece, but make sure to back it up with something worthwhile and valuable.

Infographic : A simple history of top PR campaigns!

Ever wonder what made PR what it is today? Without first knowing where PR started and where it came from, it is blasphemy (ok, maybe not blasphemy, but it’s still important)! The best part about knowing a little history of PR is that though the principles may be as old as time, the fundamentals still apply: evoking emotions in PR campaigns and creating a call-to-action are only two of many timeless PR campaign tactics you should incorporate into your plan. Check out this infographic for a brief history of top PR campaigns.

(click to enlarge)

5 Lessons from the story of Swiffer

Now Swiffer is a verb! Here are 5 lessons we can learn form the story of Swiffer.

1. Demographic changes open up new oppertunities.
The fact that more women work outside the home has increased the level of frustration with household chores, creating an opening for solution like Swiffer.


2. If something is a common problem that everyone recognizes, its solution would be universally embraced.
Everybody hates mopping. Look for ideas hidden in the obvious, the mundane, the negative, and the bothersome.

3. Thoughtful details make the difference between a product women like and a product women love.
Details are what seperate the good fromm the great. A mop that doesn't tip over when you lean it against the wall? Ingenious!

4. How you innovate is just as important as what you innovate.
Watching your customers in their natural habitate may lead you to innovations faster than any simulated environments or well-written research reports.

5. Simplicity matters
If the customer needs a manuual the size of a dictionary to use your product, then you're creating a barrier to women embracing your product. Whatever it is, make it easy to open and operate!

The Fail Trail: Understanding the impact of a social media PR Crisis

The folks at Alterian created an infographic that exposes the effect of a PR crisis on three brands: Nestle, Domino’s, and United Airlines.

Following PR crises faced by each of these brands, positive sentiment dropped sharply—as much as 36 percent in Nestle’s case.

The infographic also documents these brands’ road to recovery:

What Makes People Want to Follow a Brand?

People love to get deals—or at least they love to think they’re getting a deal.

That’s the driving force behind the decision by many social media users to follow a particular brand on Twitter and Facebook.

For this and several other revelations about the wonders of brand following in social spaces, check out this infographic from Razorfish, Econsultancy, and Social Media Today:


(via Ragan.com)

5 tips to make your press even better!

Any press may be good press, but good press is even better. Yet, how do you stand out among your competitors and catch the attention of journalists? The traditional route is to pitch your story directly to reporters and hope it’s compelling enough that they’ll bite.

I got some tips on how sources can improve chances of being noticed when responding to queries from journalists.

1. Be Fast

Speed matters when it comes to catching the eye of a busy journalist for two reasons. First, he is probably operating on deadline, so getting connected to a solid source quickly is important. Second, there are a huge number of other qualified sources trying to catch his eye at the same time.

Respond as soon as you see the query and well before the deadline. Once a reporter has what he/she needs, he doesn’t usually continue sifting through query responses. Being quick is also the number one piece of advice from HARO founder, Peter Shankman.

2. Be On Target

One thing all journalists universally hate is having their time wasted. Make sure your pitch is on target. Journalists are looking for sources that match their needs, not people who maybe, sort of, might have some expertise in a kind of, semi-related area.

Don’t respond to a query unless what you are offering is truly a fit. Responses need to be kept to the point and devoid of fluff, but still full of relevant information. The trick here is to still keep it short while including the pertinent info.

Colorful examples, links to fitting images, engaging background briefs and on-target experts with clout, character and ready accessibility all help set you apart.

3. Be Honest

If you offer an executive for an interview, make sure you can deliver. Reporters don’t have the time or patience for your CEO to somehow now be on a plane to Rome and have only an assistant VP able to chat.

Coming off as dishonest is the best way to sour what could have been a long-term relationship with a reporter. If a journalist doesn’t think he can trust you, there’s very little incentive to ever quote you (or your client) as an expert in the future.
Many sources see every journalist lead as an opportunity to finagle their way into publicity, jazz up their client reports or nurture new contacts. Leads can offer all of these, but only if you tackle replies with transparency and sincerity.


4. Be Personal

Remember that when using these types of source-matching sites, yours is likely one of hundreds of responses that the reporter has received. Sometimes a personal touch goes a long way toward making you stand out from the crowd.
A well-written, personalized and targeted response where there is a clear fit will get you noticed. Similarly, Google journalists before pitching them to familiarize yourself with what they write. Check out the style of their stories and how they typically present info and mimic that in your pitchs.


5. Be Precise

Make sure your responses are accessible. No reporter has time to sift through a wordy or poorly composed pitch to try to find that nugget of expertise or the unique perspective that you might be able to offer. Craft a response that is straightforward and to the point and you’ll increase your chances of being tapped as a source.
Make your reply easy to scan with bullet points and rich context. Rather than bulk up an email with attachments that call for an extra step to open and review, links are handier. Keep your response lean yet workable, colorful yet specific. Look for niche services that tailor to specific beats to up your odds even more.

What other tips do you have for being a good source? Let me know!

How to Do Health and Beauty PR

Beauty and health care products are perhaps the most sensitive products in the entire consumer industry whose success or failure solely depends upon the consumer satisfaction. Most people do not compromise on cost when it comes to looking good and feeling great and therefore the stakes in this industry are pretty high and consumers are prone to switch to competitive brands at the slightest inconvenience. Under such circumstances, public relations generally play a very important role in reducing market challenges and forming a loyal customer base. Understanding the requirement and trend is an important part of public relations as it can often make or break the fortune of any company.
 
You may consider the following ways to help with health and beauty PR.
 
Marketing with a cause. Cause related marketing PR is mainly a type of emotional marketing and appeals to the public from a social standpoint. Increasingly, manufactures are advertising their products as a part of a campaign where they promise to donate a certain percentage of the earning to a specific social cause. This type of marketing calls for extensive PR activity as this is a type of passive marketing where the PR officers need to understand the taste of the target audience and the cause itself.
 
Celebrity endorsements. The relation between celebrities and beauty products has been like the relation between fish and water. The common man has always been fascinated by their idols on the silver screen and it is needless to say that any product advertised by celebrities has an edge over other brand ambassadors. However, the most critical part of this PR trick lies in actually choosing a celebrity whose image corresponds to the particular product.
 
Advice from industry experts. Opinions from industry experts always carry more credibility than any celebrity and promoting a particular product by an industry insider often appeals to the educated masses who believe more in quality than in mere outward beautification. They generally provide useful guidance to consumers regarding their problems and help create an interest among the potential and existing consumers.
 
Quiz shows, contests and events. Any type of quiz, contest or big event by a company is the latest trend in the PR market that is being used to promote a particular brand. Quiz shows indirectly encourage participants to study about the product, by luring them with attractive gifts. Certain shows and contests hire celebrities as their judges who are also brand ambassadors of certain products and their presence also generates considerable enthusiasm. Beauty contests are wonderful ways of promoting a beauty product where manufactures can actually sponsor the show, with such shows having huge reach throughout the country, allowing them to take the advertisers message directly to the target audience.

Public relations along with a proper marketing can help a product to stand out among the crowd of various different competing brands. However, it is very important to educate the consumer about the product and its uses and convince them about its utility above other products if the company plans to leave permanent footprints in this competitive market.

The Main Difference of Online and Traditional PR and its Connection to Reputation Management

Traditional PR and what’s called online Public relations are 2 very different types. Generally, the PR or media relations that individuals were used to had something to do with placing segments or articles in news papers, magazines, TV and radio. However, unlike other kinds of marketing like direct marketing or advertising, the process of Public relations is story-based. More often than not, you’ll be needing reputation management services to determine which option is best for your company.

Its goal is to throw a persuasive story to the media, who’ll meet its needs, and also garnering coverage for you or your organization. When doing this, highlighting your service or product is important. However, helpful PR is absolutely not about hype and fluff. For your pitch to be a success, you should also enlighten, educate, and if you can, entertain combined with giving the readers, viewers or listeners information on a particular field or topic which they don’t have access to otherwise.


Possibly, the most important feature that differs public relations from other marketing types is that the stories are looked at the way that other articles or segments featured in the news are. They are evaluated and verified. Editors and segment producers are designated to assess the stories before getting run. This validation gives the news trust value which the print ad or commercial cannot deliver.


A person with the capability to pay for an ad can buy it, and that is fine. However, there’s a really huge difference between appearing in an ad from being featured within an editorial story. The value of trust that is achieved from being featured in the news is incalculable.


On the other side, online PR is a bit more akin to marketing or advertising as opposed to the traditional public relations. Generally, there is no third party involved to verify the story, no editors or segment producer to complete the vetting process or evaluate the article or segment which has been tendered. Online PR generally has something to do with posting information regarding online communities, blogging, email marketing campaign and distribution of online press release.

Unique online is the process of pitching bloggers. It is extremely different from a pitch to the usual media outlet because different bloggers discuss various things. Create your contact personal and don’t turn it into a pitch since bloggers aren’t in search of media oriented pitches and also PR releases.

Press releases being sent through PRWeb and PR Newswire are another online PR approach. And once again, this is accomplished very differently from the traditional media strategy. With this, landing mainstream media through your releases isn’t the main goal, if it is, then its time you think your strategy over. Primarily, press releases sent through such distribution sites are simply tools to aid your online visibility and ranking. Often, when using this method, the more releases you send out, the better for your company.
Keywords should be well mapped throughout the release, utilizing the proper keywords within the title, sub-title, as well as the body of the release. If it is the online press release route that you chose to do, utilize social bookmark services like onlywire or furl.net to archive your releases.


Even though the media can be influenced by online PR, its main purpose is always to correspond with others on the net using different websites and blogs. A great way though would be to fuse traditional PR with an online marketing approach. With this type of approach, you can use the validation of the traditional PR as well as the global scope of online Public Relations that allows you to develop a marketing program which is more better than the total of the parts. It is also a good move to consult online reputation management services to help you pick the best option for your company.

Haruki Murakami: Talent is Nothing Without Focus and Endurance

Renowned Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami’s memoir, What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

 

Murakami came to writing later in life. After running a successful jazz bar in Tokyo for about ten years, he suddenly had the notion to write a novel. After his first two novels — both written after he closed the bar — were well-received, he decided to shut down his business and try his hand at writing full-time. To balance the sedentary nature of this new lifestyle, he also started running.

 

It's not surprising then that, for Murakami, the act of running and the act of creating are inextricably linked. As he writes about the evolution of his running career — from his first marathon to his first ultramarathon (62 miles) to his first triathlon — he constantly circles back to how his athletic experiences have impacted his writing practice, and vice versa. For Murakami, the creative process is a sport.

 

Here's what he has to say about talent, focus, and endurance:

In every interview I'm asked what's the most important quality a novelist has to have. It’s pretty obvious: talent. Now matter how much enthusiasm and effort you put into writing, if you totally lack literary talent you can forget about being a novelist. This is more of a prerequisite than a necessary quality. If you don’t have any fuel, even the best car won’t run.

The problem with talent, though, is that in most cases the person involved can’t control its amount or quality. You might find the amount isn’t enough and you want to increase it, or you might try to be frugal and make it last longer, but in neither case do things work out that easily. Talent has a mind of its own and wells up when it wants to, and once it dries up, that’s it. Of course, certain poets and rock singers whose genius went out in a blaze of glory—people like Schubert and Mozart, whose dramatic early deaths turned them into legends—have a certain appeal, but for the vast majority of us this isn’t the model we follow.

If I’m asked what the next most important quality is for a novelist, that’s easy too: focus—the ability to concentrate all your limited talents on whatever’s critical at the moment. Without that you can’t accomplish anything of value, while, if you can focus effectively, you’ll be able to compensate for an erratic talent or even a shortage of it. I generally concentrate on work for three or four hours every morning. I sit at my desk and focus totally on what I’m writing. I don’t see anything else, I don’t think about anything else.
...
After focus, the next most important thing for a novelist is, hands down, endurance. If you concentrate on writing three or four hours a day and feel tired after a week of this, you’re not going to be able to write a long work. What’s needed of the writer of fiction—at least one who hopes to write a novel—is the energy to focus every day for half a year, or a year, or two years.
...
Fortunately, these two disciplines—focus and endurance—are different from talent, since they can be acquired and sharpened through training. You’ll naturally learn both concentration and endurance when you sit down every day at your desk and train yourself to focus on one point. This is a lot like the training of muscles I wrote of a moment ago. You have to continually transmit the object of your focus to your entire body, and make sure it thoroughly assimilates the information necessary for you to write every single day and concentrate on the work at hand. And gradually you’ll expand the limits of what you’re able to do. Almost imperceptibly you’ll make the bar rise. This involves the same process as jogging every day to strengthen your muscles and develop a runner’s physique. Add a stimulus and keep it up. And repeat. Patience is a must in this process, but I guarantee results will come.

In private correspondence the great mystery writer Raymond Chandler once confessed that even if he didn’t write anything, he made sure he sat down at his desk every single day and concentrated. I understand the purpose behind his doing this. This is the way Chandler gave himself the physical stamina a professional writer needs, quietly strengthening his willpower. This sort of daily training was indispensable to him.
...
Most of what I know about writing I’ve learned through running every day. These are practical, physical lessons. How much can I push myself? How much rest is appropriate—and how much is too much? How far can I take something and still keep it decent and consistent? When does it become narrow-minded and inflexible? How much should I be aware of the world outside, and how much should I focus on my inner world? To what extent should I be confident in my abilities, and when should I start doubting myself? I know that if I hadn’t become a long-distance runner when I became a novelist, my work would have been vastly different. How different? Hard to say. But something would definitely have been different.

 

Indeed, practice makes perfect!

Burberry's Fragrance Sampling Campaign via Facebook!

Burberry is launching a new Burberry Body fragrance in September, but you can’t pick up a tester at counters yet. The UK-based fashion brand is distributing the first round of samples exclusively to its 7.6 million Facebook fans.

Interested parties are invited to visit the Burberry Body tab on its Facebook Page to request a sample. The company is shipping samples to a broad range of countries.

Christopher Bailey, Burberry’s chief creative officer, announced the program via a YouTube video (above) cross-posted to its Facebook Page. Burberry’s fans are proving supportive of the campaign too.

Earlier this year Oscar de la Renta, a New York-based luxury fashion house, launched its flagship fragrance via a campaign on Facebook. After giving away 25,000 samples — a supply it exhausted in just three days — the brand’s Likes grew by 40%, said Erika Bearman, Oscar de la Renta’s director of communications.

In past interviews, beauty marketers have noted that Facebook fans tended to be their most loyal and engaged customers and, as such, make excellent recipients for sampling programs.

Like this, many companies are trying to utilize their own social media by coming up with compelling strategies that they can raise the brand awareness and interact with thier customers at the same time. 

How to Make Your Business Grow : Elevation Principal

Where’s Your Focus?
Have you noticed that everything is changing? Your industry advances, ideas expand, products morph and your customers move on. Nothing remains still.
The one thing that doesn't really change and remains constant is people. I’m talking about you, your peers, your customers, your prospects and your partners. Everyone wants access to valuable insight, great people and recognition BEFORE they want products or services. If you can focus on the true desires of people, you’re halfway to a successful mission. Where’s your focus? Are you focused on yourself, your products and your company? Or are you looking outward?

Why Marketing Fails

We’ve been taught that marketing is like a gift exchange. Acme Company gives something and Joe customer is obligated to respond. In reality, marketing has become a way to force people into obligatory situations. People don’t trust your business. Add to this that marketing messages are raining down on people EVERYWHERE they go. You can’t escape marketing.  Your customers have tuned out.

How to Build a Raving Fan Base

The solution is very simple: Focus on people.
You can meet the needs of people by helping them solve their problems at no cost. Remember that people’s core desires don’t change. When you help people with their smaller problems, many will look to you for their bigger issues.

Introducing the Elevation Principle

The elevation principle: Great content PLUS other people MINUS marketing messages EQUALS growth!

When you offer great content that focuses on helping other people solve their problems, you’ll experience growth because this type of content meets the needs of people. It doesn’t focus on you, your products or your company. It is a true gift for your audience.

The “other people” component not only means focusing on the needs of people but also people outside the company such as industry experts, who possess amazing knowledge that your audience will find very valuable.

The last part of the formula is to deliver this content in a marketing-free zone. Once the marketing messages are caged, the focus of your company shifts from “What can we sell you?” to “How can we help you?” You shift from pitching products to boosting people instead of investing in ads space.

The result: you demonstrate your expertise by the content you produce, the ideas you showcase, the stories you share, and the people you attract.

With the old forms of marketing, you pitch and sell. People ignore you and your business is at risk. With the new method, you give gifts, people trust you, and you become indispensable. Which course will you take?

The entire elevation principle is documented in the new book titled Launch: How to Quickly Propel Your Business Beyond the Competition.

Don't Overthink It: 5 Tips for Daily Decision-Making

 "What made you so efficient?" The answer is simple. “I make decisions.” We make hundreds of decisions every day – from what to focus our energy on to what to eat for dinner. Becoming a better decision-maker would be the fastest route to improve your daily productivity.

There are no hard and fast rules for decision-making. There are, however, a number of interesting tendencies that play into how we decide, which we should all be aware of.

Here’s 5 tips for daily decision-making:

1. Satisficers vs Maximizers.

Satisficers are those who make a decision or take action once their criteria are met. That doesn’t mean their criteria is low; but as soon as they find the car, the hotel, or the pasta sauce that has the qualities they want, they’re satisfied.

Maximizers want to make the optimal decision. So even if they see a bicycle or a photographer that would seem to meet their requirements, they can’t make a decision until after they’ve examined every option, so they know they’re making the best possible choice.


Satisficers tend to be happier than maximizers. Maximizers must spend a lot more time and energy to reach a decision, and they’re often anxious about whether they are making the best choice. However, more information does not necessarily lead to peace of mind or better decision-making.

In other words, gathering additional information always comes at a cost. Once you have that information, make the choice and move on.

2. How less can be more.

We’re designed to make smart snap decisions based on limited information.

"Take the best" means that you calculate only as much as you absolutely have to; then you stop and do something else. So, for example, if there are 10 pieces of information that you might weigh in a thorough decision, but one piece of information is clearly more important than the others, then that one piece of information is often enough to make a choice. You don't need the rest; other details just complicate things and waste time.

In other words, we are designed to process information so quickly that “rapid cognition” – decisions that spring from hard thinking based on sound experience – can feel more instinctive than scientific. Trust your gut!

3. The three kinds of intuition.

In the creative and business worlds, you hear a lot of talk about intuition, and “trusting your gut.” But what does that really mean? It’s less simple than you might think. Columbia Business School professor William Duggan believes that there are three different types of intuition:

1) Ordinary intuition: just a feeling, a gut instinct.
2) Expert intuition: snap judgments, when you instantly recognize something familiar, the way a tennis pro knows where the ball will go from the arc and speed of the opponent’s racket. Always fast, but only works in familiar situations.
3) Strategic intuition: not a vague feeling but a clear thought, like ordinary intuition. That flash of insight you had last night might solve a problem that’s been on your mind for a month.Always slow, but works for new situations, which is when you need your best ideas.

In other words, this difference is crucial, because expert intuition can be the enemy of strategic intuition. We should trust our expert intuition (based on experience) when making choices about familiar problems. But when we need a break-through solution, we shouldn’t be too quick to jump to conclusions. That is, we must off your expert intuition and disconnec the old dots.

4. Trust experience.
We use the cognitive biases when making decisions and do not make very rational decisions in most cases, nor are we particularly good at predicting what will make us happy. If we don’t have the knowledge or experience to make a decision, the best course of action is to just ask someone else.


The differences between you and other people are so unimportant that you would do better predicting how you are going to like something simply by asking one randomly chosen person how they like it.


In other words, if you’re wrestling with a difficult decision, consult a friend or colleague who’s been in your situation before. Their insight will likely be significantly more valuable than almost any research.

5. Choosing your battles.

Some decisions, like how to handle a dicey client situation, are worth mulling over. Others, like deciding what brand of dental floss you buy, are not.We are constantly bullied into feeling like trivial decisions are incredibly important:

The modern marketplace is a conspiracy to trick the mind into believing that our most basic choices are actually extremely significant. Companies try to convince us that only their toothpaste will clean our teeth, or that only their detergent will remove the stains from our clothes… Why does the average drug store contain 55 floss alternatives and more than 350 kinds of toothpaste? While all these products are designed to cater to particular consumer niches, they end up duping the brain into believing that picking a floss is a high-stakes game, since it’s so damn hard. And so we get mired in decision-making quicksand.

In other works, ask yourself if this decision is really that meaningful. If it’s not, stop obsessing over it, and just make a call! Don't bother yourself by hesitating as your time is WAY more important and valuable than the toothpaste.

6 PR fundamentals to get media coverage!

The PR Fundamentals are even more basic than the PR Basics! The Fundamentals give you the brief overview of what Public Relations is.  Fist of all, NEVER ask journalists for media coverage if you want to get it. Instead, OFFER your help such as a vast list of contacts, your expertise, some quotes or data. Regardless of the outcome, just do it for a karma point.

 1. Thinking differently - this is of major importance. Normal people tend to get greated normally. Mostly though, they get ignored. Be a bit above normal, you'll get some good attention.

2. Reporters are your friends. They need to be. But : YOU DO NOT CONTROL THEM. you can't control what they write, you can't delude yourselves into thinking you can. It doesn't work that way. You can, however, suggest, offer, and support. This will help you, will help your clients, and  your own business. But you do not control what they write. The second you start to think you do, you'll be smacked down so fast, your heads will spin.

3. Learn to craft a press release that doesn't put people to sleep. Your CEO can tell you something that will put you to sleep. Your amazing craft of a job is to turn the snoozer into something caffeinated. Think about the release. What can you do differently to it? What can you do that grows it, which takes it to a level where someone won't immediately delete it? Can you add another level of creativity to it? What can you do that adds some kind of HOOK to it? Something that not only keeps the reporters' eyes open, but makes them go, "OK, cool. I can write about that."

4. Remember what a repoter covers, and hit that reporter with what he covers. DON'T hit the reporter with what he doesn't cover. The reporter will hit back. Don't "massblast." You'll get virtually no coverage, and lose a lot of future chances for coverage.

5. Finally, know your reporters before you pitch them. Regardless of what you're doing-a stunt, a typical release, anything-know the reporter. Know the likes and dislikes of the reporter befor you go to them with a release. They might like only a paragraph. Or just key points with nothing else. KNOW first. Then GO!

6. Super-finally: have fun. I'll say this over and over again. Have fun. PR is a fun game you should play. You can really enjoy yourself, if you do it right. So do it right.. Have FUN!

Samsung Galaxy Tab Challenges iPad With New Ads

thinner, faster and lighter!
Those are Samsung‘s approach which emphasizes qualities of its Galaxy Tab for the UK market.

The “Lighter” ad makes me think of a situation in which an elevator is so loaded up that the weight of a cup of coffee, rather than the Samsung Galaxy Tab, makes all the difference. The “Thinner” ad shows a dad camouflaging his Tab with a pencil. In “Faster” one, a bratty kid complains that his (unnamed) tablet is too slow while a kid sitting next to him is able to enjoy the speed of the Galaxy Tab.

Though the ads don’t mention the iPad 2 by name, we can figure out the Galaxy Tab is much lighter, faster and thinner than that, which can bring debatable controversy whether it’s faster.

It's slightly different from Comparative advertising which is an advertisement in which a particular product, or service, specifically mentions a competitor by name for the express purpose of showing why the competitor is inferior to the product naming it. Because it implies the competitor is iPad 2 but doen't mention it by name.

6 ways to make your presentation captivating

Presentation in any field has become inevitable as you know. It's never easy to prepare and give the presentation in front of audiences, but I usually manage to transform myself from someone who is terrified of standing up in front of an audience to an in-demand public speaker. Here's my point - and how you can do the same:

Treat the presentation as a creative project in its own right.

Don't think about "presenting your work." Apply the same level of imagination and passion to your presentations as you do the rest of your creative work. Once you do that, you'll start discovering all kinds of interesting ways to get your message across in a persuasive way. Here are some tips to help you make a killer presentation.

1. Tap your enthusiasm.

Everyone preparing for presentation says they want to be more confident - but what I can tell them is toforget about confidence and focus on enthusiasm. Confidence can be impressive, but it can still leave your audience cold. Enthusiasm, on the other hand, is infectious - it will be hard for the audience to resist your passion.

2. Get to the core of your message.
You must know how important it is to present the most important points clearly and simply. Only introduce details when people have grasped the big picture and are ready for more. If organizing information is new to you, then here's the alternative:
Boil your presentation down to three key points your audience must understand. This forces you to hone your message to its essence, and helps you remember the structure of your presentation (even if the worst happens and the projector fails). It will also make the message more memorable for your audience.

3. Tell a captivating story.

Next time you hear a presenter say "I'll begin by telling you a story..." watch the audience - you'll see them relax into their chairs. They are re-entering the pleasant "storytime trance" they knew and loved as kids. As their critical guard is down, and the speaker has a golden opportunity to engage them emotionally, by telling a powerful story that is relevant to the theme.
Once you have the seeds of a story, practice telling and retelling it until it makes you laugh, cringe, groan, flinch or grin as you speak. When it affects you like this, it will move your audience too.

4. Wow them with words.

You should never try to get your presentation word perfect, by memorizing every single word - that will only make for stilted delivery. But it does pay to sprinkle it with a few choice phrases and add the odd rhetorical flourish.

For instance, It's true that "statistics can be misleading," but that can't get people to sit up straight. Instead, say "There are three kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and statistics."

5. Create stunning slides.
Slides are optional, but if you're going to use them, make them great. Even if you're not a graphic designer, it's relatively easy to stand out from the crowd of bullet points and PowerPoint templates, by searching creative and high-quality images.

6. Keep it simple.
Simplicity - focusing on core themes and eliminating fluff - is the key to a lot of great design, great writing, great music, and great art of many kinds. It's also one of the things that makes presentations powerful and memorable.

This is all you need for a truly captivating presentation:

• One big idea
• Three key points
• One compelling story
• One idea per slide (and no more than six words)
• One clear call to action

You probably don't have all of these skills, but I'm sure you have at least one or two. Start with these, then work to acquire the others using the resources I've listed.

For example, I'm pretty good with words, and telling stories is second nature to me, but I'm craving for learning how to develop visually striking slides. But if you're good at it, just start creating remarkable slides, which will boost your confidence - then start working on your verbal delivery and storytelling.

The ultimate test will be your audience's response. But a sure sign that you're on the right track will be when you start looking forward to creating your next presentation.

How hilarious! such a good example of IMC stategy

Nutricia Belgium has launched a product promotion advertising and marketing campaign through its new video commercial “The Instant Pregnancy" and iPhone app “Baby Connection”.

Created and developed by creative agency Duval Guillaume Antwerp, Nutricia, one of the well known brand and specialist of baby food and clinical nutrition products, has offered Belgian fathers to have a chance to experience the pregnancy with a high tech empathy suit.

Aimed to introduce the fathers-to-be about what thier wives and girlfriends go through, the empathy suit mimics the sensation of pregnancy. As demonstrations, Nutricia has been taking the empathy suit to shopping malls to let people try it. As a result, the guys who try it on seem to come away with a new respect for their better half.

As a part of the integrated communication strategies, Nutricia also created an awesome iPhone app “Baby Connection” designed for both pregnant women and their husbands, allowing both to record aspects of the pregnancy in a timeline that can be shared via social media.

The Baby Connection apps share everything that they plan, learn, feel, see and hear during these special pregnancy months. The iPhone app also automatically allows two phones held together to form one giant screen.

I think this is such a great case of an IMC strategy that contatins advertising, promotion, viral marketing and social media for communicating with their core target. Their method to approach the target is so remarkable because they considered not only the current target who is pregnant and husband but also the prospective target who is going to be the pregnant and husband in the near future.  

What a bold PR event for Heineken Italy!

Champions League Match vs Classical Concert

(Real Madrid, AC Milan) 

A really successful PR event for Heineken Italy. The audience will never forget it.

This is a pretty brave guerrilla marketing event by Heineken on the eve of one of the biggest matches, Real Madrid vs AC Milan. You might think of the event to take advantage of all the soccer fans, but you’d be wrong.

Heineken decided to stage a fake classic concert in an Italian theater event at the same time the game was to be played. To make this happen, they recruited about 200 people to get 1000+ males into this event, sacrificing the biggest game of the season! 

Heineken even had the event broadcast live on SkySport for the Authenticity. As the event got underway and the males in the audience got increasingly bored, the stage slowly released clues to involve them as the big reveal came! A live projection of the entire game for all 1000+ people in the audience, with Heineken the absolute heroes!

Very cool on a massive scale.  

I really love the way they’ve done a bit more with their sponsorship than just logo slapping. And the mixture of sheer joy and relief coming from the audience is palpable – genuinely delightful.

Do you want to be Remarkable? - Purple Cow Marketing

Are you happy being average? Or would you prefer to stand out from the herd?

That was the challenge posed by digital marketing guru Seth Godin in his popular book ‘Purple Cow: Transform Your Business by Being Remarkable'.

What is a Purple Cow?
Seth’s definition of being a Purple Cow is that ‘products, services and techniques so useful, interesting, outrageous, and noteworthy that the market will want to listen to what you have to say’.

Being a Purple Cow is not about being loud or quirky, but about being more outstanding and remarkable than your black and white spotted competitors.

What’s Purple Cow marketing?

Purple Cow marketing is that products and services are so amazing that people can’t stop talking about them.

A key theme in Seth’s ‘Purple Cow’ is that marketing needs to be remarkable because the effectiveness of traditional methods to launch a new product is questionable: people have been through so much mass targeted advertising that TV and print ads are failing to get noticed.

How can I become a Purple Cow?
If you want your marketing to be remarkable, and stand out from the rest, then you need to think about how you can make your message more unique and special to your customers.

This marketing example shows that even a toilet can be a purple cow. This ad is by a Swedish toilet company that showcases a feature of their toilet that makes it a purple cow.  As of writing, this video is the first result on YouTube when you search for "toilet", and has over 1.9 million views.  How cool is that?

So what’s your remarkable story?

If you want to become a purple cow then start thinking about what’s unique, special or exceptional about you. What’s your background story? How can you make your product sound more noteworthy than the rest?

Once you’ve developed your remarkable story, start thinking about how your marketing can be remarkable too. How can you tell people an engaging story which will capture their interests, connect with them on an emotional level and be a story they’ll eagerly share with others?

What the hell is MPR?

When IMC(Integrated Marketing Communication) uses public relations to promote a brand, it’s known as MPR (Marketing Public Relations). MPR uses nonpaid media vehicles to inform the public about a product, service, or corporation.

MPR deals with the “selling” of a corporate or brand image to a specifically defined target audience, which is different from traditional corporate public relations that deals with many different publics and has been relegated to a support role, responding more to what the client wanted than what the advertising message required. In MPR all communication efforts are controlled. They have access to the press, an ability to reach the target, and credible reputations.

Reinforcement

PR comes into the IMC process with experience in creating opportunities for two-way communication between the company and the target - making it a vital player in determining and managing the relationship between them. Because of this, PR is excellent at initiating communication efforts through interactive exchanges between the public. This dissemination of information gives symmetrical information to all interested parties, bridging the gap between word-of-mouth gossip and fact.

Defensive MPR

Ideally, PR practitioners will find themselves in an offensive position when introducing or maintaining image; but if any kind of negative publicity does arise, they will need to take a defensive position. A company’s reputation directly affects the ability to create or maintain the brand equity and brand loyalty. In a crisis or negative situation, the way in which the corporation’s view or position is handled can eliminate any lingering negative effects concerning the corporation, product, or service.

Rebuilding

If the public is not given the satisfaction from the corporation or organization, word of mouth takes over and affects thier equity and loyalty. When corporate ethics result in a scandal, it can be very expensive to win back confidence and brand-loyal consumers. Continual informative messages are critical to the continued success. Initiating or beefing up an old-fashioned “open door” policy is a key first step to reenter the marketplace and to win back public acceptance.

“Cynical consumers, zapping commercials and ignoring print ads, are more receptive to the editorial message. The third party endorsement allows advertisers to sell a now product while enveloping the commercial message in a creative environment.” That is the essence of MPR.