Staples: Wow! That’s a Low Price! – Absolute Worst Advt in America

Staples’ “Wow! That’s a Low Price!” has earned the dubious distinction of Absolute Worst Advt in America in a poll conducted by the Consumerist. This ad has garnered a high percentage of negative comments in most of the forums, blogs, discussion groups & others. The guy yelling makes one to mute the TV. Companies should do a user testing before launching the Ad. Even though the ad conveys the message of low prices, the way it is shown gives a bad impression for the consumers about the ad.

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Using Local Listings, Mobile & Social Media for Geo Marketing

With the Emergence of local Listings, Check ins, SMS & other tools, Geo marketing has gained a lot of Momentum. Google/Yahoo/MSN local listings help local business to reach the local customers easily. This can be combined with Mobile marketing to send the coupons & offers to the users Mobile. Social media like Facebook, twitter & other location based apps can help get users reviews & feedback. Proper optimization of local listings with targeted keywords can help drive the local traffic. This also helps in building the rapport with the customers. Local Review Sites help in drawing the customers to the local business easily. Groupon, foursquare & other new Web 2.0 based sites have helped in geo targeting. Mcdonalds worked with foursquare to provide coupons & other discounts for check ins through foursquare. This helped it increase the foot traffic. Location based targeting is increasing by the day & Google is adding several new features for local listings. Geo marketing is very useful as it helps target the customer easily.

Apple’s Four Pillars – Mac, iPod, iPhone & iPad

Apple’s iPad & iPhone have given a new tool for marketers to reach a new segment of customers. Companies have released both free & paid apps for the se devices. Billions of downloads have taken place & the app store has become a new revenue source. Together iMac, iPod, iPhone & iPad form the four pillars of Apple. iPad has created a new market with many companies vying for a tablet spot. For the digital marketing, companies can create new apps tailor made for promotions, new product releases & others. Apple has been announcing many improvements in these products. It is very rare that a product by a company provides a new marketing opportunities for others. Mobile advertising targeted at iPhone users is also rising & iphone revolutionized the smart phone industry.

BP’s Brand Disaster

BP’s Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill has damaged the BP brand Value. This is evident by BP off the list in Interbrand’s 2010 list. Blogs, twitter & other PR machines were against the way BP handled the crisis. @BPglobalPR, a satirical BP twitter account got more followers than the BP twitter account. BP, a brand built over the decades, should have done a better of way of protecting the brand. With the rise of social media, it is clear that companies can no longer control their brand. It is not just BP, even Nestle, Toyota & other top brands face similar wrath of the social media. The logic lies in accepting the facts & then doing the damage control. Social Media is a vast space & even if a single negative story spreads, it has the potential to ignite a wildfire.
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Apple iPhone, Google Android & Blackberry App World Mobile Apps

Apple iphone apps changed the way smart phones are used. Thousands of apps are available for iphone & this has resulted in various ways iPhone can be used. Billions of downloads have been done. Success of this led to Google’s Android store & Blackberry’s App world. But these 2 haven’t been able to match the success of Apple iphone apps. Apps provided a new medium for marketers to reach the customers. Several free informational, product based, service based & paid apps have been introduced to reach the customers. This also helped a new way of branding. Apps are also being released for promotions with links to Twitter & Facebook. Success of an app depends on the number of downloads & also the viral/word of mouth about the app.
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Starbucks & Social Media

Starbucks has embraced the digital marketing & social media into its overall marketing strategy. Starbucks has a website where users can submit ideas & can be voted by others. It has also included sponsored tweets in Twitter to promote free goodies for tax day. It has also promoted deals in foursquare. Starbucks facebook promotions have also helped it increase the brand awareness. Blogs on the website helped provide a communication with the customers. Starbucks social media promotions have helped it develop good rapport with its big customer base.

A Hunter Shoots a Bear – Most Creative Youtube Video Ever?

A Hunter Shoots a Bear is one of the most creative youtube video ever. Ad is for Tipp-Ex, a correction fluid. Most of the videos on youtube are static meaning users cant interact with the ad. However, this ad gives the users a chance to select what to do at the end. Based on the answer, users can interact with the ad. There are various ways like hug, kiss, shoot, hit & others in which they can interact. The ad is a new type of interactive videos in which the site along with the video become part of the ad.

McDonald’s great Check in using Foursquare

McDonald’s Foursquare success has shown the world how foursquare can be utilized successfully. McDonald spent just $1000 for the campaign & it has resulted in huge increase in foot traffic to the stores by 33%. Also more people have started following Mc. This has gained a ton of exposure on blogs & social media. Coke Australia is also teaming up with Foursquare for the promotions. This shows social media is not just about sharing & is beyond facebook, youtube & twitter.

Coca-Cola, IBM, Microsoft, Google & GE in Interbrand’s 2010 top Brand list

Coca- Cola, IBM & Microsoft have maintained their first 3 positions in the 2010 Annual Interbrand list. Surprising aspect is Apple failing to make it into the top 10 inspite of tech crazy fans. HP has broken into top 10 slot for the first time with a good track of performance & acquisition. With 2010 still in the recession grip brand list indicates the companies ability to maintain the branding. BP due to its gulf oil spill has resulted in drop of rankings. Some of the companies have also made into the list for the first time. Interbrand considers a number of parameters to rank the brands. Financial, Automotive, FMCG are some of the sectors having a place in the rank.

Will it Blend? – The top Viral video of all time

Blendtec CEO Tom Dickson surely knows how to create a top viral video even if it meant destroying an iphone or an iPad. The will it blend video created a history with more than 134.2 million views. All the ads have the same music, tagline & host. No body would have thought of grinding an iphone or an ipad. However, this brilliant idea helped the Blendtec company acheive a viral status. The next top viral video is Avian’s Live Young. There have been many viral videos.