MetaFilter posts tagged with Marketing

Quid Pro SEO

Cash4Lead — Wed, 08 May 2013 08:48:14 -0800

In Reluctant Defense of the Curmudgeon Malcontents. A Baltimore-area attorney explains how online marketing is hurting the legal profession: There is for the conscientious ethical attorney a balance between eremitic life in a Byzantine-era monastery and nonsense online carney barking, but none of these non-attorney folks deserve a seat at the table in that discussion. And the more you see of the online marketing nonsense that's out there, the more sympathetic you become to people with poor home training who reject that nonsense in language you wouldn't want uttered aloud in your grandmother’s house of worship.

"a watchful eye on technology and marketing"

Rory Marinich — Fri, 03 May 2013 20:01:41 -0800

Back in the day, Ken Segall helped create Apple's Think Different campaign and helped name the iMac. More recently he worked on JC Penney's Yours Truly, commercial, before JCP ousted Ron Johnson as its CEO. He writes a sharp, entertaining blog called Ken Segall's Observatory, where he offers opinions on advertising and design geekery. His take on Ron Johnson's failure is interesting, as is this post on what it takes for an advertisement to stand out in a crowd. He calls attention to surprisingly decent ads from Microsoft and Dell, critiques terrible ads (from Microsoft and JC Penney and even Apple, and comments on whether skeuomorphism has its advantages. He's also fond of discussing product names. Give this one a skip if advertising gives you hives, but for those of you who're interested in things like this Segall's blog is especially choice stuff.

International Art English

The Whelk — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 12:33:26 -0800

"The internationalized art world relies on a unique language. Its purest articulation is found in the digital press release. This language has everything to do with English, but it is emphatically not English. It is largely an export of the Anglophone world and can thank the global dominance of English for its current reach. But what really matters for this language—what ultimately makes it a language—is the pointed distance from English that it has always cultivated. " - Triple Canopy magazine on why do artists' statments and press releases sound so utterly odd and confusing.

A Step Beyond Product Placement

OmieWise — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 07:38:32 -0800

Branded Superheroes: sponsorships and marketing deals.

Why IS The Pepsi Blue?

mannequito — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 14:32:23 -0800

From the Beatles' White Album to the Pink Panther's Fiberglass, Richard Branson's rebellious red to the Queen's posh purple, CBC's Under The Influence takes a look at How Colours Make Us Buy.

Treat your facebook friendships like a marketer

UsernameGenerator — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 11:33:50 -0800

Facebook Friend Analyzer A new, fun way to be creepy [SLYT]

TIRED OF BRAND X?

The Whelk — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 13:20:37 -0800

An insert house provides labels and covers for products in TV and film production to avoid legal problems and Earl Hays Press is the big granddaddy of them all so why not enter an alternate off-brand universe of Butt Beer, Captain Sugarr, and Sports Page today?

The marketing department was hacked!

Potomac Avenue — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 12:14:13 -0800

Perhaps putting a pro-life message on a coat-hanger is the Worst Marketing Decision of the Year. But there are other nominees. Related: The worst twitter marketing of the year. The Worst Social Media mistakes of Hurricane Sandy The worst Christmas Ads of the UK (so far)

Radiohead - Comet, Crying, Vivarium, Ten

The Whelk — Fri, 02 Nov 2012 11:46:34 -0800

Something Awful.com - Design The Worst Band T-Shirt Ever.

The iEconomy

zarq — Mon, 08 Oct 2012 19:52:45 -0800

The iEconomy: Apple and Technology Manufacturing. Since January, the New York Times has been running a series of articles "examining the challenges posed by increasingly globalized high-tech industries," with a focus on Apple's business practices. The seventh article in the series was published today: In Technology Wars, Using the Patent as a Sword. Related: For Software, Cracks in the Patent System and Fighters in the Patent War. Part 1: "An Empire Built Abroad" (January 12, 2012) * How the U.S. Lost Out on iPhone Work (Previously on MetaFilter) * Motion Graphic: The iPhone Economy Part 2: "A Punishing System" (January 25, 2012) * In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad * Graphic: Compliance by the Numbers * The Lede Blog: Chinese Readers on the ‘iEconomy’ / Voices of Chinese Readers on the 'iEconomy' * Poll Finds Consumer Confusion on Where Apple Devices Are Made * The Lede Blog: Questions for Li Qiang of China Labor Watch * Economix Blog: Facebook Chat About the 'iEconomy' Series Part 3: "Protecting Profits" (April 29, 2012) * How Apple Sidesteps Billions in Global Taxes * Apple’s Response on Its Tax Practices * Graphic: Shrinking Corporate Tax Rates * Graphic: One Technique Apple Pioneered Video: Charles Duhigg and David Kocieniewski Respond to Reader Questions and Comments Part 4: "Retailing's King" (June 24, 2012) * Apple’s Retail Army, Long on Loyalty but Short on Pay * Video: Video: David Segal Responds to Reader Questions and Comments Part 5: "The Impossible Made Possible" (August 5, 2012) * In Wooing of Nissan, a Lesson for Tech Jobs? * Graphic: Evolution of a Manufacturing Supply Chain * Slideshow: An Automaker Migrates to Tennessee * Room for Debate: Should the U.S. Seek More Tech Manufacturing? Part 6: "Artificial Competence" (August 19, 2012) * Skilled Work without the Worker: A New Wave of Adept Robots Is Changing Global Industry (This article is linked in this post.) * Video: The Robot Factory Future * Video: Business Day Live: Nissan's Lesson Part 7: "A System in Disarray" (October 8, 2012) * In Technology Wars, Using the Patent as a Sword. * Graphic: For Software, Cracks in the Patent System * Graphic: Fighters in the Patent War

Copenhagen cool

fredludd — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 15:21:28 -0800

American public transportation commercials? Boring. Belgian De Lijn commercials? Amusing. Danish? Exciting!

Operation Flood

infini — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 23:37:59 -0800

India mourns Dr Verghese Kurien who passed away today at age 90. If you have eaten butter in India, or been able to add a spot of milk to your tea, then you've experienced the impact of Operation Flood — the largest dairy development program in the world. Operation Flood helped India become the world's largest milk producer by 2010–11, with close to 17 percent of the global production. Gujarat-based co-operative, the "Anand Milk Union Limited", often called Amul, was the engine behind the success of the programme. While much more can be said about Dr Kurien's work with dairy farmers, cooperatives, milk production as well as his awards and honours, his best known legacy is perhaps the creation of the Amul brand. The little girl who knew just how to poke India's funny bone has her very own Previously.

Crowd and Funding on Internet

gilrain — Mon, 27 Aug 2012 09:11:25 -0800

Ben Kuchera, a video games journalist who has written for Wired, Ars Technica, and now the Penny Arcade Report, discusses the seedy underbelly of Kickstarter promotion.

Brilliant A+++++ would read again

Zarkonnen — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 10:34:58 -0800

The best book reviews money can buy. (SLNYT)

Well, nobody's perfect. But at least we have cameras.

iamkimiam — Wed, 15 Aug 2012 06:01:08 -0800

What makes a memorable movie quote memorable?
A news summary of how they went about it.
A short audio version (via NPR) of the story and research summary.
A Wikipedia list: AFI's 100 years, 100 quotes.
A short list of advertising slogans that fit the research model for movie quote memorability.
The research paper (automatic PDF download). To automatically serve yourself up a .zippy helping of movie quotes, click here. This downloadable portion consists 894014 movie script lines from 1068 movie scripts. Additional nutritional bits found here! Perhaps you'd prefer a heaping, metadata-rich plate of fictional conversations extracted from freshly picked raw movie scripts (contents contain 220,579 ~~beans~~ conversational exchanges between 10,292 movie character pairs in one giant serving!) Or maybe you wanna take the test...Well, do ya, punk?

50 Shades of #808080

vidur — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:46:37 -0800

By late May, more than ten million copies of E.L. James’s Fifty Shades trilogy, an erotic romance series about the sexual exploits of a domineering billionaire and an inexperienced coed, had been sold in the United States, all within six weeks of the books’ publication here. This apparently unprecedented achievement occurred without the benefit of a publicity campaign, formal reviews, or Oprah’s blessing, owing to a reputation established, as one industry analyst put it, “totally through word of mouth.” [Grey Area: How ‘Fifty Shades’ Dominated the Market]

I'd like to buy the world a giant garbage patch in the ocean

mrgrimm — Tue, 19 Jun 2012 09:16:56 -0800

Sodastream will ignore a cease-and-desist letter from Coca-Cola regarding a marketing campaign in South Africa (and ~20 other locations) referred to as "The Cage."

Re: Docket No. FDA-2010-P-0149

TangerineGurl — Wed, 30 May 2012 17:21:40 -0800

FDA Rules Corn Syrup Can't Change Its Name To Corn Sugar "Consequently, the use of the term “corn sugar” for HFCS would suggest that HFCS is a solid, dried, and crystallized sweetener obtained from corn. Instead, HFCS is an aqueous solution sweetener derived from corn after enzymatic hydrolysis of cornstarch, followed by enzymatic conversion of glucose (dextrose) to fructose. Thus, the use of the term “sugar” to describe HFCS, a product that is a syrup, would not accurately identify or describe the basic nature of the food or its characterizing properties. As such, using the term “sugar” would not be consistent with the general principles governing common or usual names under 21 CFR 102.5. "

This post could not handle a link from the Daily Mail

mippy — Tue, 22 May 2012 03:36:47 -0800

As a flag-waving Britain prepares for the Jubilee/Olympics (or in the words of the comedy Twenty Twelve, 'Jubilympics'), the nation seems divided between the wildly enthusiastic and those suffering from Patriotism Fatigue(link may be NSFW). James Ward (of Boring fame) does a round-up of spurious Jubilympic themed products, after consumption of which you may require a sick bag.

Beaucoup Boo Krug

mattdidthat — Thu, 17 May 2012 00:55:36 -0800

At Burning Man 2011, select participants were invited to an elaborate champagne dinner party, with food prepared by New York City chef Phil Winser of The Fat Radish. But who hosted the party, what was the reason for the dinner, and why were only certain participants invited? Well, the dinner was a marketing campaign for Krug. With Burning Man as a backdrop, Krug's marketing team and events agency invited society bloggers and publications such as Town & Country and W Magazine to photograph and write about the "exclusive" dinner for its brand loyalists, with the intent of getting extensive coverage and brand exposure. After the dinner and photo shoot, Krug's teams abandoned the setup and left the entire mess for Burning Man to clean up. When the New York Times asked Krug's brand director Carl Heline about Burning Man, he remarked, "It's not that different than Fashion Week." Burning Man has a long-standing policy regarding advertising at and commodification of the event. While Burning Man allows media members to publish photographs for editorial purposes, Burning Man does not permit the use of images for branded articles and product placement. Outraged by Krug's marketing campaign and disregard for Burning Man's 10 Principles, the Burning Man community has been voicing their opinions of Krug on Twitter and Facebook. Burning Man organizers have posted the entire story on The Burning Blog.

"Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising." ~ Mark Twain

Fizz — Thu, 03 May 2012 08:43:15 -0800

Don't judge a book by the ad on its cover. [Guardian.co.uk] Chalk it up as another brilliant innovation – or a sign of the impending apocalypse – as China Daily reports that publishers are making space on the front covers of books for advertising. Apparently the "first book to carry an advertisement" is an account of the famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma, written by his mother, which was published in March adorned with "the logo of a well-known Chinese textile manufacturer".

"...for the next tour, I’ll either be calm and collected or nervous with a dangerously out-of-control boner."

zarq — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:11:36 -0800

The Awl: Nine Writers and Publicists Tell All About Readings and Book Tours

Get a load of these cuties

Horace Rumpole — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 09:37:56 -0800

Design Decoded, a new blog on Smithsonian.com, kicks off with a seven part series on the century-long process behind creating and marketing the perfect citrus. Part 1: Designing the Perfect Fruit Part 2: Design Specs for a Genetically Ideal Snack Part 3: Airships and Oranges: The Commercial Art of the Second Gold Rush Part 4: Who Is Linda Tatersmith? No, not a MeFite. Part 5: Drones: The Citrus Industry’s New Beauty Secret Part 6: And for Dessert: An Object Lesson on Simple Pleasure Part 7: The Shape of Fruits to Come

Dilatant Compound 3179

Toekneesan — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 08:00:53 -0800

We went into the Doubleday bookshop at Fifth Avenue and Fifty Second Street the other day, intending, in our innocence, to buy a book, and found all the clerks busy selling Silly Putty, a gooey, pinkish, repellent-looking commodity that comes in plastic containers the size and shape of eggs.

How an item in the August 26th, 1950 New Yorker's Talk of the Town column turned a marketing consultant into a millionare by Christmas. During World War II, as Japan picked off Southeast Asian nations that supplied most of the world's rubber, American chemists set to work on developing a synthetic alternative to the material which at the time, the U.S. military used 32 pounds of for every service member. Many of the first attempts ended in failure. In 1943, one of those formulas, created by James Wright and his colleague Rob Roy McGregor, involved blending boric acid and silicone oil. The resulting Non-Newtonian fluid was considered a poor substitute for rubber and was subsequently shelved In 1949, toy storeowner Ruth Fallgatter learned about the material and contacted marketing consultant Peter Hodgson about including the material in her annual Christmas Toy Catalog. Hodgeson packaged one once of the material in clear plastic packages and sold it through Ms Fallgatter, in her catalog and in her store, just a few blocks down the street from Yale. Yale students were in fact some of her biggest customers for the material. But the following year, in spite of it being her number two selling item (ironically losing to Crayola Crayons, the Silly Putty brand's current owner) the toy storeowner decided not to include it as part of her Christmas wares the following year. This, however, did not deter Mr. Hodgeson. In the late spring of 1950, and already over $12,000 in debt, Mr Hodgson borrowed $147 and bought a batch of the compound and some leftover plastic Easter eggs. He packaged one once of the material in each egg and took the material to New York. There he convinced the buyers at the Doubleday Bookstore to carry the material. In August of that year, an unnamed columnist at the The New Yorker published the following tidbit about happening upon the product at that bookstore.

The shell of the egg is in two equal sections of different colors (various color combinations are offered); you pull them apart and there is the Silly Putty. We watched a demonstration of a few things that can be done with Silly Putty, and recalled a party we attended back in 1944. General Electric gave it to introduce to the press and public silicone, a freak substance its chemists had produced in the course of experiments in synthetic-rubber making. G.E. called it "bouncing putty;" it not only bounced like a rubber ball but stretched like taffy, and flew into a hundred pieces when hit by a hammer and then went right back together again. Well, Silly Putty is on the order of bouncing putty-for which, as far as we know, G. E. has never found any general practical use-but is being promoted on a purely recreational basis. It not only bounces when rolled in a ball and stretches like taffy but can be modeled into various nonpermanent shapes, and if pressed fiat against comic strips, it picks up the pictures, in color. If tugged at quickly, it breaks in a brittle way; if left alone, it sinks into a disinterested heap. After absorbing the elementary facts about Silly Putty, including the price-a dollar an egg-we sought out Mr. Lee Weber, the manager of the bookshop, to ascertain the mysterious link between it and Doubleday. He told us that Silly Putty is the most terrific item the Doubleday shops have been privileged to handle since "Forever Amber." "Normally, we only handle books and phonograph records in our New York shops," he said. "We first heard of Silly Putty when our St. Louis shop, which has a toy department, stocked some eggs and had a sensational run on them. We got hold of Peter Hodgson, a New Haven man, who was responsible for turning them out, stocked them, and in the past month have sold over ten thousand eggs." It is Mr. Weber's opinion that Silly Putty is the biggest novelty of 1950. The Doubleday clerks seem to have a compulsion to toy with the stuff, he told us, and are always glad to demonstrate it. The eggs come in regular pasteboard egg crates containing a dozen each, and people often buy a dozen at a time-at no reduction in price. Compulsively picking up an egg, l\1r. Weber opened it, took out the putty, rolled it into a sphere, and ricocheted it off an unabridged dictionary. "'We sell the eggs mostly to men who claim they're buying them for their children," he continued. "Actually, Silly Putty is a fine toy for adults. We don't recommend giving it to children under seven, in any event. They may get it in their hair or swallow it. It's not toxic, though. A man came in the other day and said that his little boy had swallowed his Silly Putty two days before and was feeling fine." After leaving Doubleday's, we got in touch with Hodgson, the manufacturer, who agrees with Weber that Silly Putty is a dish for adults. "It means five minutes of escape from neurosis," he said. "It means not having to worry about Korea or family difficulties. And it appeals to people of superior intellect; the inherent ridiculousness of the material acts as an emotional release to hard-pressed adults." About a year ago, Hodgson told us, he happened to pick up a blob of silicone that a chemist had left at the house of a friend of his. It fascinated him, and stirred his commercial imagination. "I figured that maybe I wasn't the brightest guy in the world," he said, "but at least I was thirty-eight, and if I got a bang out of it, other adults would. I arranged with some chemical engineers in Schenectady to turn out a few trial batches for me. When we got just what we wanted, I patented the name Silly Putty and was ready to go into business. That was last spring, around Easter time. Easter eggs being so unimaginative, I decided to combine my putty with Easter and give them both a lift. The stuff costs me seven dollars a pound, or almost as much as bar silver; that's why I can only sell an ounce of it for a dollar. We've started making it in thousand-pound lots and hope to get the price down." We asked Hodgson what he believed the future of Silly Putty to be and he had an emphatic answer. "It's here to stay," he said, and cited a number of practical uses for it. Hospital patients can use it for therapeutic hand exercises. A New Haven surgeon works out with it every morning before operating. It is a perfect furniture leveller; you just stick some of it under the short leg of a jiggly table and there you are. Hodgson told us that he buys his eggshells from a plastic company, that he has orders on hand for a quarter-million putty eggs, that he now has a staff of ten workmen and expects to increase it to thirty soon, and that by Labor Day his output will be great enough to fill, belatedly, a large order from Macy's toy department. "We'll sell a million eggs by Christmas," he said.

Silly Putty is Dilantant Non-Newtonian fluid, which means that unlike typical fluids, its viscosity is dependant on more than temperature and pressure. Non-Newtonian fluids also demonstrate a change in viscosity based on the force that is applied. The more force applied, the more resistance the fluid demonstrates, which is why a five pound ball of it won't bounce when dropped from the top of a parking garage, or why it turns to pellets when mixed in a high speed blender, or why it seems to get up and boogie when placed on a speaker cone. While Silly Putty is the most well known version of the material but it's also available under the brand Thinking Putty, where it's available in a clear formula, a thermographic formula, and a magentic formula. You can make your own Non-Newtonian fluid by combining cornstarch and water, or by mixing borax, white glue, and water, a material affectionately known as Oobleck. But to make genuine Silly Putty you'll need the following: 65% - Dimethyl Siloxane 17% - Silica 9% - Thixotrol ST 4% - Polydimethylsiloxane 1% - Decamethyl cyclopentasiloxane 1% - Glycerine 1% - Titanium Dioxide It can, however, be purchased in bulk. Or it can be ordered directly from Dow Chemical as Dilatant Compound 3179. Bonus material: —From your childhood The Original Silly Putty TV Commercial A Silly Putty commercial from the 1960s A Silly Putty commercial from the 1970s, the glow-in-the-dark Star Glow Putty A Silly Putty commercial from the 1980s A tiny movie about the making of silly putty A brief documentary on the history of Silly Putty A Silly Putty timeline This post was informed and inspired by the excellent Stuff You Should Know Podcast about Silly Putty. Thanks Josh and Chuck! And finally, a cranky old coot's one page resource on Silly putty: Wayne Smith's Silly Putty Page

Think Different

Artw — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 22:12:20 -0800

The Real Story Behind Apple's 'Think Different' Campaign