“Weird” “This commercial is just creepy” “Bizarre, but funny” “Brilliant!” “Over the top. Was the creative team on acid?” “Horrifying, dumb, disturbing.” “The funniest commercial I have ever seen” “I would never buy Old Spice” “Bring back Mustafa” “Solid gold. Give Old Spice all the awards” Those are just some of the comments I encountered when I asked a … [Read more...]
Harnessing the Power of One
I found myself reflecting on pivotal events of 2013 recently and in honour of Nelson Mandela’s passing, I watched again a 1992 movie called “The Power of One” set in South Africa during WWII featuring a young English boy raised under apartheid. It was a powerful movie of racial injustice, and had one amazing soundtrack. I downloaded it to my iPod for inspiration moving forward … [Read more...]
If content is king in 2014, creating community will be Queen
Looking into 2014 we are going to be hearing a lot about “content” and its importance to marketing efforts. Specifically, content as a tool to position your business, be seen as a leader by your customers, be known as an expert in your field, and quite simply to ensure good online search results. Google’s search algorithms have been changed recently to favour genuine content … [Read more...]
Westjet Marketing Magic
By now many of you have likely viewed the “Westjet Christmas Miracle” video that has gone viral since being posted last Sunday evening. It paints a charming tale of how the airline cleverly created Christmas magic by greeting customers at the Calgary luggage carousel with individually wrapped gifts matching their Christmas wish expressed only hours before in the Toronto … [Read more...]
In search of the secret sauce for an Epic Viral (split?) video
Seems many marketers are in search of the epic viral hit these days. “Make a video and make it go viral,” they say. Seems simple on the surface. Heck, if a cat spinning from a ceiling fan or a chemist blending things that aught not to be blended can garner millions of hits, how hard can it be? Yet the secret sauce eludes for most. The whole question of what makes … [Read more...]
