New Contributors This Week
We have two new contributors this week: Nicky Senyard who shared her take on the differences between markets and communities and Adina Zaiontz who debuts by curating this week's WIR post. Welcome to both of you!
Thanks to Our Sponsors!
- Our lead sponsor this month is eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in Toronto and SMX Search Analytics in Toronto. They are being held March 29 to April 1. Big thanks to eMetrics for being with us all month! Make sure you check out our interviews with Jim Sterne and Alex Langshur – both speakers at eMetrics. Coming up in March we'll have an interview with David Klein of Aeroplan who is also speaking at eMetrics – stay tuned!
- And content powerhouse, CommuneMedia, gives us 5 tips for fast and easy DIY headlines.
This week's WIR curator is Adina Zaiontz. Marketing is Adina's guilty, geeky passion. She once spent an entire summer backpacking through Europe while surreptitiously photographing British and Italian transit ads.
Seen Around the Blogosphere
“Prepare for the day when you’re no longer cool”
In this economy, we all face the harsh prospect of being laid off and having to start over, just when our career may be peaking or prosperously humming along.
As we watch the more frugal Oscars last weekend, it’s interesting to see who’s still hot and whose star has fallen. The mainstays – Meryl Streep, Robert DeNiro, and Al Pacino all have one thing in common to explain their career longevity. Throughout their ups and downs, they weren’t afraid to re-define themselves as actors; even when that sometimes meant taking a step down into a so-called unseemly role or movie genre.
Here’s where Rod Morgenstern comes in. Rod is a once-famous 60’s and 70’s Rock and Roll drummer and survivor of the stardom roller-coaster. In this post, Harry Joiner, an executive recruiter shares an interview with Rod, as well as some insightful tips on how you can weather the storms in your career.
The Audi-aucity of Hope!
In the “life is not fair” file, let’s investigate how Bigshot Marketing Blogger, Guy Kawasaki somehow managed to snag a $126,000 Audi Quattro to review in his blog.
In all seriousness, this is a great example of a high end auto brand, using cheapo viral word-of-mouth to promote their new sportscar model. To those of you unfamiliar with Kawasaki, he is a dot com industry mainstay, former Apple Executive (back when they were building Macintosh’s) and a renown speaker and blogger.
Audi made a smart move in recognizing that Kawasaki himself (late 40’s, family man, high income) as well as his blog readers fit the profile of their target market. The result – the kind of online positive and authentic PR no online media spend could match. See Kawasaki’s rave post, complete with photos of his kids and friends ogling the vehicle. Audi has created an engaged brand ambassador spreadin’ the Audi love, all essentially free. (Guy only got to keep the wheels for a week.)
Can Kindle Make Cash for Book Publishers?
With Jeff Bezos schlepping the Amazon Kindle on the Daily Show this week, it’s clear this gadget may be on its way to being the next iPhone. While it is still in its early adoption stage, Seth Godin rolls ahead of the curve with some sharp strategies and business models for publishers and authors to leverage Kindle to boost their sales, promote authors, and find reader niches. This may just transform the bookselling business as we know it.
From Canadian Marketing Blogs
- Conquer your Twitter-Phobia: For those of you who can’t tell your tweet from your twillow, HerMedia offers a lifeline with a Twitter How-To Class. I’d go but I’m scared it’ll feel like first year university when I got my PineMail account.
- How I learned to stop worrying and love the recession: Fazal Siddiqi chimes in with some sound advice about staying focused on performance and productivity in an atmosphere where you’re constantly bombarded with dire economic news.
Interesting Bookmarks from the Backchannel
- If you’re like me, and collect entrepreneurial ideas the way Oprah hoards diet books, you’ll love Springwise. It’s an enewsletter and website with a weekly fix of cool new business ideas from around the world.
- If you’ve ever had to manage a project that involves 3-10 people editing a spreadsheet, you know this task often turns into a nightmare of dozens of file versions, shared-drive access, and the inevitable excel newbie who can be counted on delete all the customers data. Well stop sweating into your spreadheets. Editgrid is here. This great new tool lets groups sharing and editing spreadsheets online. No more multiple versions emailed as attachments for everyone to make changes. You may actually start to love Excel again.
Releases, Announcements and News
- CBC no slouch on Oscar weekend
- IAB releases mobile ad spending report.
- Yahoo! Canada launches new campaign aimed at “CHOs – Chief Household Officers” AKA, Canadian moms.
- Rogers Communications shopping for new media planner
- Giant Cadbury Egg Stunt set to Scramble Dundas Square
This Week's Video Meme
Australian Ad Masquerading as Viral Draws Angry Response: In a blatant attempt to copy the success of Canadian born bridal wig-out viral video, Australian fashion brand Witchery planted a fake online video featuring a girl claiming to give her boy-crush back his funky jacket (a la Cinderella’s lost slipper). The response was a resounding media backlash. Unlike Capital C’s authentic looking creation which got almost half a million YouTube views, the Aussie production with stalker-girl’s perfect hair, room and lighting screams “agency made”.