Best Practices Not Included

Mitigating Junk Mail

Seth writes a great post and points us to GreenDimes.com.

GreenDimes is a business that takes your name and address and for 10 cents a day (for those counting that comes out to $36.00/year), they contact direct marketers and make sure your name gets taken off mailing lists. But that's not all they do, on top of this, they'll apparently plant a tree in your name every month. The philosophy here being to try and offset paper consumption by regrowing tree population. Seth had this to say in thinking about his junk mail experience:

"I had a thought: I'm going to rip all of these up when I get inside and just toss them. Why couldn't they just email me all this crap, right into my junk mail folder, where a nice little email service would delete it after 10 days. I took that thought a little further and began to think about all the paper that would be saved if all those marketers quit sending me all that junk."

I've heard of people mailing junk mail back on their own, but for most of us, we just don't care enough to take the time to do that. After checking out GreenDimes website, one of my favorite things about the organization is their integrated business model. Companies should ask themselves the questions: "what do we stand for" or "what are our values". As a business, you have to be cultured now a days. Green Dimes slogan is great: "our planet - do you give a dime?" Also, I love the impact widget on the right side of the homepage, this really helps send their message home. It seem's understandable why people are jumping on board this service. Seth, like myself, and most everyone are sick of having to deal with junk mail. We would all like to see this form of marketing die and in time, it will. These types of programs, national do not call lists, spam blockers etc. are all barriers we as consumers will only continue to put up if marketers keep resorting to these kinds of tactics.

Integrated Marketing Communications Project

As part of a project for my advertising and promotion class, with the help of a team, I am going to be developing an integrated marketing communications plan for a business. After meeting with my team and figuring out each others interests and industry expertise, we have narrowed it down to two  innovative companies, both of which have great products/services in promising industries. So, with the entire advertising and marketing industry experiencing a paradigm shift and more over, being in a state of constant flux, we wanted to think big, and help take marketing in the chosen business to levels never seen before (laughing). So, sticking to this spirit, the first company we are considering is California-based TransOrbital, Inc., a company who's business is literally out of this world. That's right, TransOrbital is aiming to launch the first for profit commercial mission to the moon sometime this Spring. They seem confident their Trailblazer spacecraft will turn a profit.  Thousands of people have paid to have messages, business cards, art, ashes of loved ones etc. sent to the moon on the Trailblazer probe. If successful, the spacecraft will orbit the moon for a few months, all the while sending back potentially salable high quality photos and HD video that might be sold and/or used for advertising to generate revenue. In addition, data will be collected to create a new, high-resolution map of the moon. In its finale, the probe will slam into the lunar surface, disintegrating upon impact, but leaving personal effects remained intact inside a protective capsule that will tunnel into the lunar surface. It's easy to see how there's a lot of business to business marketing potential for this company. Some corporate sponsorships and advertising, including a notable partnership with HP are in the works as TransOrbital will be looking to offset the $15 million in mission costs. It's also important to note that in the age of corporate responsibility and sustainability, via environmental, social, and ethical, there have been many concerns raised surrounding the commercialization of space as it's beginning to look like it could turn into a modern day gold rush.

The second company we are considering is SlingMedia. Sling Media's revolutionary Sling Box is an exceptional product that can be best described as a media distribution tool. The device lets you watch your television, DVD player, Tivo or other remote controllable video output device from across the internet. The Slingbox has a broadband Internet connection allowing viewer's to watch a live TV stream across the internet to anywhere in the world. How Stuff Works did a great piece on the SlingBox if your interested in learning more about the technology. More recently, the company has apparently been speaking to Apple about its ambition to stream iTunes music and video to the upcoming iPhone. While it's unclear if Apple will allow SlingMedia to do this, the companies CEO Blake Krikorian has been adament that he would love making the SlingBox compatible with the Apple TV. And just a few weeks ago, CNET News.com confirmed that the company is indeed working on making the Slingbox compatible with Apple TV. The potential to enable iTunes users to access their music libraries and stream Apple TV content to mobile devices is mouth watering to say the least. Different verisons of the SlingBox are currently available from $179.99 to $249.99. In my opinion, one of the bigger trends we will see over the next 5 years is the transformation of traditional television and broadcast methods as we know them today. From a historical perspective, we've seen the internet evolve, watching the digitization of content into a connected world. The first step was print media, news in all forms left their physical medums as the "information age" took off. Then we saw the melt down in the music industry’s barriers of entry in recording equipment, brick-and-mortar distribution methods and broadcast as the sole medium. This inturn, is slowly leading to the death of the music industry’s hit making machine as audio has moved towards the web. The final forseeable step in the equation is video. Now, even though the integration of video online is already prevalent (just look at the success of youtube), everyone is still waiting on premium cable programming to switch over, changing its delivery method via the internet's multifacted mediums. So, what makes the SlingBox so great is that it represents a solution to a problem that consumers have been dealing with for years. The ultimate reality is that, at the end of the day, content wants to be free, not necessarily in monetary terms, but free in its ability to move, free in how it's distributed, free in how it's consumed. In today's world, with all the connectivity, there's no reason why television should be confined to the living room. Lifestyles are such that we should be able to watch video in a what we want, when we want, where we want, on demand fashion.

Both TranOrbital and SlingMedia are companies with a lot of potential. It will be a challenge to develop a plan for one of these companies and I'm looking forward to thinking outside the box, integrating new and unconventional marketing methods.

   

Standing Out!

Business cards should be power, yet they are usually pretty boring and you don’t see many successful variations. But for Poul Nielsen, a personnel trainer from Toronto, this card is totally appropriate. It may seem to have some functionality issues, but I think the engagement potential here is huge, it holds your attention. The business card is so important, the last impression if you will. The cards I’ve always found to be successful are simplistic; simplistic in the sense of “less is more”, especially when it comes to the information being displayed. This card accomplishes that goal. It’s simple, just a name, occupation and phone number. But, what’s most powerful about this card is the dialogue and conversation it creates, and at the end of the day, that’s what’s important. It’s the new marketing way, integration and extension. The design facilitates the exchange, and again, it’s the exchange that’s important. The connection, the interaction, the sharing, this is the true power behind this card. Great concept.

I Hope This Finally Kills Conventional Television

Say hello to Joost (pronounced 'juiced'). I've been reading some great reviews about the software supporting user controls and interaction. Developed by the founders of Skype and Kazaa, Joost is essentially a piece of software that supports an interactive television service allowing for the distribution of TV shows and other forms of video content over the Internet via a peer to peer technology. A few weeks ago Viacom (MTV, BET, Paramount Pictures etc.) entered into an agreement to provide their content through Joost and more agreements with big time content producers will surely follow. Joost has been in beta testing mode since December but it should be available to everyone sometime this Summer. I'm super jealous after reading many of the reviews beta testers have been putting out about the software. Despite the complaints about the current content, some of the user controls include: channel chat, integration with Google Talk and user ratings/reviews. But, my favorite talked about feature has to be the ability in allowing users to search for shows and create personalized channels only involving specific content they are interested in. Advertising for Joost is currently set to be a traditional style which I'm skeptical about being that it's probably my biggest beef with tv right now. We'll have to wait and see how that pans out. All in all, this seems like it could be a hit a here's why. YouTube has been a great success, no 1.65 billion questions about it, but the reality is that traditional broadcast is not going away and it rightfully shouldn't. Giving your audience total control like YouTube has done, still results in limitations. I can't tell you how many times of had my cursor blinking in the YouTube search bar trying to think of something to watch and look up. User controls, accessibility and on demand are the attributes that make YouTube so great.  At the end of the day, a television audience still wants to be entertained, sometimes that can mean interaction, but millions of Americans come home every night, kick their feet up and instead of "tune in" they want to "tune out". Joost will no doubt capitalize on the choice factor. If you want to "tune in" and even interact, the option is there. Lets be honest, the last time we as consumers were given choice when it came to television was with the advent of the remote control. It's about time we were finally empowered thank you very much. In the long run, it's this integration that will set Joost apart from other traditional platforms. If someone can get me in on beta testing for Joost, please drop me a line.