http://video.mynet.com/faytkilap/Iste-iPhone-5/1303894/
Who knows how real this maybe-most likely an artists vision of the new iPhone. Whether it’s real or not, this vid sure is fun to watch. According to this Vid the keyboard comes out of the phone and on to your desk and you can watch movies in mid air. Thanks to Tom Asacker for the tip on the Vid. Enjoy! SM
QR Codes Go Up in Smoke!
Even though QR (Quick Read) codes have been around for a while, this is the year that I’ve personally really enjoyed them. It started at Christmas When my friend Charles gave me a New York Times and it had a HUGE really colorful QR code on it and I sat at lunch trying to take a picture of it, which of course did not work. From a Blog earlier, I mentioned that you would need a QR Code reader or scanner on your iPhone to get it to work. Since December, I have made QR code business cards, stuck QR Code Stickers up all over the world and made QR codes for many friends including Non Stop Travel, Power 104.3, and Oceanic Cable.
Now, check out this video, I know it’s in Croatian, but even in Croatian it shows you how simple and easy it is to use a QR Code. And as I’ve been studying the usage of QR codes in Advertising, I noticed that many take the customer to a website, which is cool and all. That’s what most of my QR codes do, but as we continue to use them, I love all of the really awesome things we can do with them!
For example this QR code is on the back of a Ronhill cigarette package and it takes you to a regional mobile website that gives the smoker current locations of where smoking is allowed. And similar to Foursquare-users can also update the list of places themselves. Thanks to Springwise.com for the tip and for more information on TDR click here.
On the subject of cool things to do with QR codes. Feel free to use any of these ideas or use them as a springboard to your own QR code Fun, Advertising, and Marketing! (These arent real or if they are it’s a total coincidence because I just made them all up today 9/15/11)
1. Red Bull/Energy Drink/Soda Company: The QR code could click to a site that shows all the cool places Red Bull events are being held this year and you’d be entered to win VIP access. Or even more fun, the QR code would lead you to Travis Pastrana’s backyard-where he could teach us some new tricks on Moto X or Subaru.
2.Clearthesmoke.org/Lung Association: Since we did an article on cool things you can do with smoking, I figured I’d better add in some PSA type info on quiting smoking. So, instead of taking you their websites homepage, the QR code can take you to an entry form to enter the “Quit Smoking Today” art contest. Here you would upload your art and then the next time you scan the QR code it would take you to the Clear the Smoke dot org Art Gallery where you could see all of the great works of art and vote on your favorites. Winner received a smoking HOT trip to the Bahamas.
3. Broke2.com/Clothing Company: Click on the QR code and it takes you to a fun interactive video game where you get to dress up Celebrities in some fun destination appropriate clothes to go on a road trip race all over the world. Changing clothes as you go to each destination. Racing against all sorts of people all around the world. Fun to do, fun to race and fun to meet new people from around the World. You could get badges, points or money coupons each time you get to a new country and use them to purchase a special limited edition line of clothing designed for the game.
4. G-Shock/Watches in general: Put the QR code underneath the crown or on the band. Wearers of the brand get the exclusive code to be in the VIP Watch Club. Along with the usual cool VIP things brands like to give you. This Club would check the time and show you a video of the coolest thing happening at that moment in time. Like an all night party in Ibiza, backstage at Fashion Week, a sneak peek at a celebrity partying in Maui, behind the scenes at a Victoria Secret’s Fashion show, on the set of Hawaii Five-0, Carnivale in Rio, St. Pats Day in Dublin etc. Whatever, wherever is HOT at this TIME, they will take you there!
Oh-What fun to be had with QR codes and just think I couldn’t even download one of these things 8 months ago. The World sure is moving fast! Best way to get a hold of me this week and weekend is by text at 808 479-9928. Cheers and Aloha! SM
Sell..Well..Anything with Advertising
http://theberrics.com/trajectory/broadcast-part-one.html I don’t even know how I stumbled upon this vid, haven’t even skateboarded for 10 or 20 years. After you see the short commercial for DC skate shoes, a really, really well done short film comes on explaining the roots of the Broadcast Skateboard Wheels.
Part of the video shows the owner of the brand Kelly D Williams talking about his brand and how it was born in Idaho and why he decided to make the wheels and the company etc.
It’s the other half of the video that is why I’m writing about this in “Advertising in Hawaii” I know it doesn’t have much to do with Hawaii other than there are a lot of skaters here and I live near the Makiki skate-ramp. But what I want to point out is a few things about advertising:
#1. You Can Sell Anything with the Right Creative: I personally don’t need skateboard wheels right now, but after watching this video it does make me feel and think that if I did start to skate again or if I need a skateboarding present for someone for Christmas, I would buy these “Broadcast” Skateboard Wheels. Why? Because, just check out the cinematography. Everything works, The crispness of the High Def film, the skaters look-hair, shirt, shoes, pants, of course the skating. But I especially like and dig the whole Vybe on the streets and artistic quality of the Vid. Especially check out the view coming from the Bus..Wow! That section is just plain awesome!
#2 You can sell Anything with feeling and emotion: Some of the best radio commercials give listeners a great image in their heads if the story is explained with great coloring, crisp sound effects and the right music. This video commercial does all of that and more. Just feel how when the music changes the whole vybe changes. it gets cheery, then pretty dark.. then he falls. Wow! when the skater falls you can FEEL it right within your bones, or when he almost gets hit by the cars, one can feel the fright of it, at least for me, it goes right through my blood. First time I watched it I even shrieked a bit when I thought he was going to get HIT by the car! Bringing your listener or viewer in with feeling and emotion is what you want to do using broadcast mediums. BTW: With Social Media we are looking for Engagement.
#3 You can sell anything with Passion: Just think Kelly D Williams who owns this company is selling wheels on a skateboard. He isn’t selling a Sizzling mouth-watering steak or a nice pair of orange and blue NIB Retro Air Jordans. He is selling Skateboard Wheels and he is passionate about them and his company. And you can feel it in his voice, in his delivery and in his “testimonial” about his company. Get the right spokesperson, who’s passionate about the product, who fits the product,Who actually and really does use and enjoy the product… You’ll sell the product.
*The one thing I don’t like about the video, is it doesn’t allow people like me to put it on our blogs. It’s not on YouTube or Vimeo, it’s on something called Permalink-which I suspect means you can’t take it and post it. The best I could do is leave the link at the top of the page. But you can just click on it and it will take you to the vid, I just don’t like the look it gives my page-I would much rather have a color picture up on there with a play button arrow ready to press. Oh Well. It’s so good, I needed to write about it with or without a cool color picture with link.
Have a nice weekend and remember if you need any ideas for your service, business or product just shoot me an email and I’ll work on it for you. See you soon!
Smart Phone Shopping in Korea
- I was just talking to someone last week that was in Asia and he said he saw businessmen buying beer with their smartphones before getting on the train! I had heard that the Japanese had been purchasing their train tickets for a while now with smart phones, but Beer! And now, just today trendwatching.com released this picture and short article about purchasing beverages with smartphones in Korea. The other interesting thing here is on-line sales also increased. Looks kind of fun, but I would miss the funny faces the cashiers make when I ask them:”Hey those fish things are gone! (they responded..eh?!?!) So I said: Where are the fun fish things with the reddish sweet bean paste in them that are usually in the frozen section” Yep, I really did ask them that about two weeks ago at 7-Eleven on Piikoi. It’s my favorite food to eat when I work too late. I couldn’t find them that night and neither could the clerk..Go figure! But I sure wouldn’t find them at a store without a cashier. Me, I personally like shopping and seeing cashier, sales people etc. Although, this would be a good idea for the downtown Longs Store. That place always has a line and that is one time that I am in a HURRY! So, It could be a good thing for certain places, but PLEASE dont do this at the shoes or clothes stores!!!!
- What do you think of the new stores? Fun? Fast? Lame? the future? or not? LMK
Home plus, the Korean branch of Tesco, recently launched a series of virtual stores on subway platforms, enabling customers to make purchases using their smartphones while they wait for a train. During the campaign, Home plus online sales increased by 130%, with over 10,000 customers trying the stores. trendwatching.com
- No Cashiers here! just click and go!
Facebook Facts
We’ve chatted about it a bit before, How I would recommend picking a Social Media medium and using it well instead of doing 4-8 different mediums and doing them all haphazard. Well, today, it looks like if you want to pick one-pick Facebook. Check these interesting facts out:
Research by DDB Worldwide and Opinionway Research finds 84% of typical Facebook fans of business’ and products are existing customers. Tip here is you are marketing to people who already like your brand! Treat them this way and You’ll win in the end. Treat them like people who don’t know or care about your brand and you’re missing the boat. What I’d do is give them free things, secret specials only found on Facebook, Announcements about new products coming out just to these “favorite” fans, some sort of frequent Facebook Club, etc
Social Media Products Director of web analytics firm Webtrends Mr, Kistner says 51% of people in the US HAVE Facebook accounts, 8% have Twitter accounts and only 4 % have geo location accounts like Foursquare. That’s some pretty big numbers for Facebook! I personally like to goof around with Foursquare to get the badges, but as a business, I would for sure go with Facebook first, then pick one or at the most 2 other mediums that fit my brand and goals and work with them on a secondary level. But for sure go for Facebook first and foremost and do it well!
Note: Visits to company websites are almost all down over a year ago and of course visits to Facebook sites are up compared to a year ago. Another reason FB is the place to do your social Marketing. But, like we’ve said before if you’re a new or newer brand the best way to get your Facebook marketing working is to use traditional media like TV, Radio, magazine, Newspaper, billboards to reach out to the masses and bring them to your FB page.
And we’ll leave you with one last fact Facebook fact from Jack Neff- 117 Brands already have at least a MILLION fans! with 40 on pace to join the million mark this year!! Wowza!
Fuel your Engines-GetfoundontheWeb!
Getting your website, blog or whatever you’re trying to promote on the first page of Google takes some time and effort. Here’s a bit of the basics, after a bit more testing of something’s I’ve been learning over the last few months, I’ll add some more advanced SEO information to this blog in about 3 weeks-I just want to make sure that they work first. So for now, let’s look at some things we all need to know to fuel the Search Engines out there!
First: What is a Search Engine:
An article on bbc.co.uk states that: “A Search Engine makes it possible to find a specific bit of information in the huge mass of data stored on the web”.
Second: Who are these Search Engines that we should care about:
According to Rob Croll there are actually thousands of Search Engines-Who would know that there are that many! But, to get found on the web as of today August 26, 2011, we should concentrate on having Google, Bing and Yahoo! find us. And Google is by far the main Engine we want to feed most of our fueling efforts towards.
Third: What do the Search Engines Do? as of today I gotta say.
The Search engines like Google and Bing are known as crawler based engines and at the moment operate similarly to each other. These engines do three things to find our blogs and websites:
A. They use Spiders also known as Bots and Crawlers that search the web for content by finding links and getting directed to in a few other ways-that sentence it a bit vague, but don’t worry or get confused. Basically Spiders, Bots and Crawlers are all the same thing and what they do is look for you and me. I’d draw a fun picture if I didn’t need to sleep tonight. Maybe I’ll draw it another day and add it in here.
B. Once the Spiders find you or me, the information is indexed into a database to allow for future retrieval for the time when someone does a search-Types a word into the Google search box or as some people call it the google rectangle. the Google search box Which BTW is on the top right or the middle of your page. The top middle area where the web address is called the browser. I’m sure many of you know what a browser is but For many years our IT guy would ask us to copy and paste things into our browser and for the life of me I could never find it on my email-duh it appears when I turn my internet on. So I never did anything, but I managed to get by for many a year. I think learning to copy and paste and what a browser actually is, was the best thing I’ve ever learned on the computer-it now saves me tons of time and frustration and gives me more leisure time and how super easy is it? OMG!
C. Now when someone goes to Google, Bing or Yahoo! and types in a word, a sentence or question into the “search box”(ah I like that name-easy to remember and use) an algorithm tries to identify the most relevant results from their indexing.
Fourth: What do Search Engines look for?
Each search engine has its own criteria and their own algorithm but they all basically look to see if there is a relationship between your page and a searchers inquiry. The closer your page fits what the person is looking for, the easier you are to find. After you’ve read this simple explanation, look to the bottom of the page for many of the helpful things to learn about to increase your Search Engine Optimization.
Fifth: How do they know which blog or site is best for your inquiry:
They use their “secret” algorithms. Ahh, i love that word, its my favorite word when I explain how Pandora finds the songs you like, they use a complex algorithm. So, what’s an algorithm? It’s basically a pretty complicated mathematical formula. Google will even tell you it’s so complex it uses 200 different variables! And the search engines change these algorithms frequently. Actually, Google has admitted according to Rob Croll at Marlannah Digital Marketing to changing their algorithm at least once a day! Wow! now that’s pretty crazy, but I suspect they will change them more than once a day in the near future, who knows they probably already are doing this.
I really didn’t mean to write this much tonite and I do need to get some sleep, but before I go I’ll give you the list to increase your SEO that I promised you.
1. Content relevancy: Whatever your site or blogs name is, write about it. Like today, If I was trying to increase my SEO rankings, I would have written the word “advertising” or “radio advertising” or better yet “advertising in Hawaii” in this blog. but today, I’m just writing to help out. Hah, but I did just write it, but not to increase My Ranking, but to tell a simple example.
2. Popularity: How many views have you had today, yesterday and over the years that your site has been around. Also, Who is following you or your blog. Twitter, Facebook, and Foursquare fans and friends help you here too. Over the last year or so, your Social Media competency helps a lot with your popularity.
3. Inbound Links: These are the links on other people’s pages that link to you. In many of my posts I link you to various sites mainly to help you find the information, sources, people, places and things easier, but these outbound links from my site DO help others Inbound links, which helps one get higher on the Google food chain. Today I’m trying to go linkless, mainly to keep this all about learning and not about increasing my sites Google search ranking.
4. Outbound Links: These aren’t nearly as important as inbound links. But, I like to use them because they help you the reader find things easier and who knows, they may bring me an inbound link or two if people are using the spiritual law of reciprocity.
5. Title Tags: The words in your title tag are what appear in the clickable link on the search engine results page (SERP). They also can be seen in the top of internet browsers. From what I gather, they are extremely important, some say if you don’t fix this, don’t bother with the rest. Others say this is 1 of the top 3 things to pay attention to for increased views of your page. I suspect I need to fix my title tag on some of my sites. From looking on the web, it seems most advise to put what you are selling/doing first, then keywords that make sense next to each other and end with your company’s name. So Something like this would be a good start for a Pizza Joint: Pizza, Eat in-Take Out, the best pepperoni Pizza in Hawaii, Hawaii Pizza Company. There’s a ton of good advice if you do a search in Google.
6. Page Rank: Google uses this to rank your site/blog. A link analysis algorithm. Basically doing all of these other things on this list will help to increase your page Rank. Which will in turn help you get found faster and easier.
7. Domain Age: From what I’ve read on the net, Google likes sites better that have either been around for a while or the name has been purchased for 3 years or more. Less than a 3 year lease on your site’s name decreases your ranking.
8. Useability: Attribute, description of how easy your site is to use. Method or technique to get things done easier for the user. People who come to your blog/site can use it easily with high satisfaction.
10. Site Maps: Visual or textually organised model of a websites content that allows visitors to find what they are looking for easily and make sure that all of your links and connecting words work! A site map is like an interactable table of contents on your site. The bigger your site the better your site map should be, if you have a pretty simple blog, I’d work on some of the other of the top 10 first.
These 10 words come from “Epic Strategies for Small Business” How Search Engines Work written by Rob Croll on July 11, 2011 for marketingzeus.com the information written after the 10 words, I wrote from mostly reading all sorts of things, seminars and of course by “doing” my various websites and blogs. I’m a big believer in “don’t just think about it, wonder if its right or wrong, just jump in and start doing it” No one’s perfect at writing a blog or getting their site to page one on Google, but its better to try things than wait around until you “think” you’re ready and/or perfect. If you do that, five years could go by as you wait, that’s a lot of lost practice time!
You can comment and I’ll add in your thoughts and recommendations and add a link to your site if you like on what they mean. For more information on anything listed above, just google it, there’s a lot more information out there on all of these 10 items. We could do a whole one page blog on each of them if we wanted. For additional information on Search Engine Optimization check out Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide or Bings blog has a post entitled Search Engine Optimization for Bing. Or check back here in a month or two and we’ll add new things. As we’ve all learned, it’s an ever-changing landscape, but just working on the basics will work wonders for you and people searching for you. The simplest thing I ever did was moved from Web.Me to WordPress and my views double in a week. That was so, super easy, should have done it years ago! Have a nice weekend-Stay Dry!.
How To Make it in America Trailer Part two
The New Trailer for How to Make it America coming October 2nd at 10:30pm on HBO. Trailer courtesy of GQ.com
Are Clothing Stores Going the Way of Records/CD’s …Books?
This video makes the on-line shopping experience for clothes seem pretty close to the real thing. It’s a 2D experience that shows you how you would look with your new Purse(put in product here) and it really does work well. I suspect it will get even better and better as technology moves us there. Me myself, I really like shopping in the real stores, trying on clothes, watching what others are buying in person, talking to the sales person and having fun “shopping” in “Brick and Mortars”.
But I am also someone who said I wouldn’t read a book on my iPad, that I really needed to feel and touch a book. But after going on a trip to Seattle this past week. I found it very convenient to read 2 of the 3 books that I downloaded to the kindle APP and read on my iPad. Not only was it convenient, but it gave my carry on a few less pounds to carry. AndI didnt need to remember which books to bring-they were all on the iPad already-All in one place! So, in regards to books, unless I’m reading at the Beach, I’m now an offical electronic Book Convert. My house will love this! So much less clutter. What do you think of shopping for Clothes, Books, CD’s etc on-line and not in person now and in the future?
Video courtesy of RazorFish.com and their Kinect Shop.
Big Blow Ups Rule in Seattle Advertising!
I’m in Seattle for about 4 days this week and I’ve been noticing a lot of Balloon/Blow Ups Advertising in Town.
I Saw Vinnie over at the Duck Tours, a GIANT purple ape and a Paul Bunyan at a used car dealership, Huge Ice cream cones on top of an Ice Cream Store and Big Yellow Hot Air Balloons tethered to the ground at another used car dealership and some pretty usual yet very High in the sky Yellow, Red and Green circular balloons.
It seems Seattle is pretty infatuated with these big balloons. My thoughts on them are: They seem to catch attention IF and only IF you are driving by them. And they seem to catch my attention. The only thing that is really wrong with this type of advertising is many places let their balloon shapes get dirty and kind of ugly which can give your business a worse image instead of more customers. they are pretty expensive, thus if you do this type of advertising, please budget in for a new one every few months or at least once a year so that they will look good.
The Radio Advertising in Seattle was pretty good, the good spots that I heard told a topical story and I could picture the scenarios happening in my mind. The spots that didn’t do to well had way too much copy in them and too many cluttered words read way too fast.
A billboard I noticed Said “Advertise here..250,000 people see this Billboard each Day” I liked that a lot, many times us in media forget that one of the best places to advertise about ourselves is with our own media. A few years back I let my employees run 20-30 ads a week about themselves and also during their “ad” week they were spotlighted on our internet sites. Each Account Executive received an additional 1-5 calls each week that they were on and we had a 20% closing ratio, thus we DID make money from running ads on our own medium. Congrats to the Billboard company!
100% Recycled Advertising
Nike’s Better World Campaign uses the new HTML5 to create an interesting scrolling story board microsite, It’s ok, but I really enjoy the video made from 100% recycled advertising. Basically, some of the best Nike clips with a new voiceover. The clips move quick and flow well together, I particularly like the DJ’s in the beginning with the bright green shoes and Bright orange speakers. The video also tells and sends a great message. But where’s Mike? I didn’t see him, did you? Lebron, Kobe and Carmello and their muppet cohort’s are all there, so is Ronaldo and other big stars and up and comers. But couldn’t find Mike, it’s a great 2 minutes of action, take a look-see and LMK if you see Jordan? I personally couldn’t find him anywhere and if you want to recycle your NIKE ads, you better have Jordan in there-Those were some of the best ads ever made! And I am a bit biased, he’s my favorite player of all time!
Have a nice Weekend! I’ll be headed to Seattle next week, so I will give some reports from Pikes Place-the Marketplace with the “happiest employees on the Planet” so says the motivational “FISH” video. I’ll check it out and let you know what I think about it. Although, I don’t think I’ll be buying any fish-no place to cook it up in the hotel. Hit me up if you have any suggestions on what I should do and where I should go.
Advertising In Hawaii 