Archive for the 'Advertising' Category

Viral Videos of the Week – RSS; Gangster Kids; and Barack Obama

Each week I am going to try and post the top viral videos of the week. As a professional marketer, communicator and media junkie, I think it is important to watch these and see what people are viewing, passing along and enjoying.

Video: RSS in Plain English
Earlier this year I predicted 2008 to be the year RSS goes mainstream and it looks like the people at CommonCraft agreed with me or I agreed with them – I’m not sure. Either way this is another wonderful video by the people at CommonCraft.

7-year-old Gangster Goes on a Joyride
While this is very much disturbing, I was still laughing about a miunte in when the 7-year-old gangster explains why he went on a little joyride.

Barack Obama Denounces Rev. Wright
Barack is my guy and his speech about race was spot on, but this was long overdue.

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.

Website Design Freedom Benefits

It has been nearly a month since I last blogged. A lot of things have kept me busy during that time, including starting a new marketing job, as well as creating a new web site for a Minneapolis home remodeling company, Ark Construction, Inc.

This was my first time creating a web site from stratch. I had previous experience in design, which allowed me to create sites on existing platforms like Ning, WordPress and Blogger. However, this was first time I felt like I was in total control.

A few benefits of creating the site on my own include:

  • The ability to create an xml site map, allowing me to let Google and Yahoo! know which pages on the site are of the greatest importance.
  • The ability to hook up the site with Google Analytics. This allows the client to view the site statistics in real time. They can also use it in the future if they are interested in buying keywords.
  • No more extra source code baggage, which comes with creating a site on another platform.
  • The ability to customize the meta keywords and description on each page.
Now, by no means am I done working on the site. It takes a fair amount of time and maintenance to build links and search engine rankings.
If you are looking for a little help building sites and are in the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area, contact me.

Mike Huckabee Commercial: Is it a Cross?

Receiving more attention than it probably should, the big question surrounding Mike Huckabee’s latest presidential campaign commercial is whether a book shelf in the background was strategically lit to subliminally look like a cross?

Although Huckabee has denied anything subliminal, from an advertisers perspective I think the producers were well aware what they were doing. I’ll let you be the judge by watching the video below.


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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