Archive for March, 2008

Great Branding: New Jordan “No Cinderellas” Commercial

I love the new “there are no cinderellas” commercial made by the Jordan division of Nike. The commercial highlights some of the biggest upsets in sports history.

What I particularly love is the fact that it takes on the point-of-view of the underdog – a feeling that people are emotionally drawn to.

The theme of “no cinderellas” associates the brand with everyone and every team who has ever worked hard to achieve something that others said they could not. What a great message to be associate their brand with.

Underdog references made in the Jordan commercial:

  • John Thompson III is shown watching video of his father, John Thompson Jr, the first African-American head basketball coach to lead his team to a NCAA national championship.
  • The I-AA Appalachian State Mountaineers are referenced for their unlikely win over the 5th ranked I-A Michigan Wolverine football team.
  • North Carolina State head basketball coach, Jim Valvano, is shown running across the court after winning a NCAA national championship and snapping the Houston Cougars 26-game win streak.
  • The Boise State football team, a team from a non-BCS conference, is shown practicing the “statue of liberty” play that gave them a BCS bowl victory over the Oklahoma Sooners in 2007.
  • And finally, Michael Jordan is shown making the game winning shot in the 1982 NCAA national championship game. The victory was Dean Smith’s first national championship at North Carolina.

Optimizing for Multiple Store Locations

Minneapolis PictureLet’s say you own a small business in St. Paul and want to extend your business to Minneapolis, Edina, and Eden Prairie. What can you do to target those cities? Below are a few tips for optimizing your web site for multiple cities and multiple locations.

  1. Ensure all locations are listed on the Google Local Business Center. Visit: http://www.google.com/local/add/lookup?hl=en-US&gl=US to list your site. 
  2. Create a unique page for each store location. Provide the address, contact details, and opening hours for that location. Add specific details about the area, amenities and facilities provided in that particular location and a map and photographs if possible.
  3. Provide search engine friendly links to each and every page. Try setting up links to each page with great anchor texts in a directory-like format.
  4. Create search friendly URL structures that mirror regular directory structures e.g. www.groceries.com/store-locations/minneapolis/
  5. Create unique, descriptive meta data for each and every localized page. Use popular key phrases, queried by searchers, in the Title tag. For example, “Supermarket, Groceries, Grocery Store – Minneapolis – Store Name”.
  6. Use any extra budget you have to obtain links from other local businesses, chamber of commerces, newspapers and charities direct to the store location.
  7. Finally, be sure your uniques pages are listed in your sitemap.

For more information on what SEO in Minneapolis, please visit my web site.

Printable 2008 NCAA Men’s Basketball Bracket

Click on the link below to view the 2008 NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament bracket.

http://www.ncaa.com/uploadedFiles/Sports/Basketball_(M)/2008D1MensBasketballBracket.pdf

When you print it, view your print settings and under the “page scaling” sub-section, select “Shrink to Printable Area.”

NCAA Basketball San Antonio Final Four LogoGood luck with your picks! I will post my picks later tonight if you have no clue. Thus far, most analysts like to four number one seeds to make it to the final four, although a few number two’s like Tennessee, Georgetown and Texas have snuck their way into a few expert basketball brackets.

If you have any tips on you choose the teams, please leave a comment.

Update: To see an updated bracket with the winners of games thus far, visit ESPN.com.

NCAA Selection Committee Controversy

Bob Knight and Jay Bilas pointed out on ESPN that the NCAA Basketball selection committee is made up six out of ten people that have no previous experience in college basketball.

Knight said that he would like to see former coaches like Dean Smith have a hand in evaluating the top 64 teams. I like the idea because they can evaluate talent differently than someone like me, however I feel the politics in a back room might make this a bad idea. It would only create more controversy if Smith had a greater hand in choosing teams and it just so turned out that eight ACC teams got in the tournament.

Either way, it is what it is. If you want to get in you have 30 games to do it during the regular season. If you leave some doubt, then there is no one to blame but yourself or your team.

I also like the fact that the selection committee is not shorting the mid-majors from receiving at-large bids if they rightfully earned the spot. We’ve seen what they can do once they get there.

NCAA Basketball Selection Committee Members

Thomas J. O’Connor (2007-2008 Chair)
Director of Athletics, George Mason University

Michael L. Slive
Commissioner, Southeastern Conference

Jonathan B. LeCrone
Commissioner, Horizon League

Christopher Hill
Director of Athletics, University of Utah

Daniel G. Guerrero
Director of Athletics, UCLA

Laing E. Kennedy
Director of Athletics, Kent State University

Stanley M. Morrison
Director of Athletics, UC-Riverside

Eugene Smith
Director of Athletics, Ohio State University

Jeffrey A. Hathaway
Director of Athletics, UCONN

Lynn Hickey
Director of Athletics, UT-San Antonio

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About Allan Woodstrom

Minneapolis, MN, USA
Marketing and Communications Specialist
[AllanWoodstrom.com]

Marketing Breakdown

Read all of my marketing insights at MarketingBreakdown.com.
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