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God is in the details

By on March 28, 2012 in creativity

More evidence that the days of boring church marketing are long gone: Mars Hill Church, based here in the Northwest. We thought we’d peek under the covers of their website to see if we could discover who coded the site, and look at what we found: If you’ve never fiddled with HTML, this won’t mean [...]

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Dollar Shave Club viral video

Do we hate Dollar Shave Club’s viral video?

By on March 7, 2012 in advertainment, advertising, creativity, responsible or not?, word of mouth

This being the Responsible Marketing Blog, you might think a video with an F-Bomb in it might attract our ire, right? Wrong. Watch this: There are plenty of things we don’t like: Racism. Bigotry. Violence. Corporate greed run amok. Comic sans. But boring marketing is irresponsible, and boring Dollar Shave Club is not. This is f**king brilliant. [...]

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Responsible or not? CIT’s college recruiting video

By on February 20, 2012 in advertising, creativity, responsible or not?, videos, viral marketing

College advertising is usually so, well, meh. Not so with this ad entitled “It’s a Snap” from filmmakers Henry & Aaron, done with full creative license for their alma mater, Western Australia’s Central Institute of Technology. The video has gone viral, leaving some to say it has changed the face of college recruitment advertising. So, [...]

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Tums Corn Dog Carnie ad

Tums commercials gone wrong

By on September 14, 2011 in creativity, execution responsible, sex sells, viral marketing

In commercials, funny is money. So is sex. So when combined, sexually suggestive, funny commercials are usually bank. And the more sophomoric the humor, the more I usually like them. But these new spots for Tums antacid are just wrong — specifically these three: Inappropriately suggestive is funny when it makes sense, and is relevant [...]

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Motivation? Try purpose instead of money

By on May 17, 2010 in corporate responsibility, creativity, socially responsible, videos

The carrot or the stick? Neither. Research has shown that for knowledge workers, using money as an incentive actually hurts performance. You read that right. If you want your team to really shine, give them a purpose: View on YouTube We’ve been talking about the marketing benefits of adding purpose to an organization since the [...]

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How to get a job for $6

By on May 13, 2010 in creativity, videos

View on YouTube You don’t need the biggest budget to succeed at marketing. The biggest budget doesn’t guarantee success. No, you need the best ideas. The best ideas win. What do you think? Subscribe to this feed.

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Don’t ignore “Ignore Everybody”

By on April 2, 2010 in books, creativity

In Ignore Everybody: and 39 Other Keys to Creativity, Hugh MacLeod shares his 40 keys to creativity with straight talk and no apologies. There are no silver bullets, and instead he talks about refreshingly honest things like the fact that selling is harder than it looks, you have to put in the hours and you [...]

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Publishing is dead. Long live publishing.

By on March 24, 2010 in creativity, social media, videos, word of mouth

Here’s a nifty little video regarding the state of the publishing industry. Hang tight—there’s a twist about half way through. View on YouTube I know. This execution has been done before, but it’s still pretty clever and the message is the right one. There’s been plenty of talk about the eminent death of the publishing [...]

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Don’t cut corners on creativity

By on January 18, 2010 in advertising, creativity, fun, videos

I’ve said it a million times: It takes creativity to break through the clutter. Here’s an ad that does just that: View on YouTube 2009 was rough year, and a lot of companies have dramatically cut their marketing budgets. A lot of brand advertising budget has been moved to sales promotion. You gotta do what [...]

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Evian’s hip-hop roller babies: Responsible or not?

By on July 9, 2009 in advertising, creativity, environmentally responsible, responsible or not?, videos, viral marketing, word of mouth

By now, you’ve probably heard about Evian‘s new “live young” campaign featuring the roller babies. You haven’t? Well, now you are in the know: There’s a lot to like here: It’s fun, unique, the CGI was done well and who doesn’t love Rapper’s Delight? It’s the type of video you can hardly resist hitting the [...]

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Is Burger King’s “Square Butts” ad responsible?

By on April 10, 2009 in creativity, message responsible, responsible or not?, sex sells, videos, word of mouth

Last night, a friend from high school sent me this question via Facebook: Can you explain why ANYONE (let alone Burger King) would think it a good idea to adapt “I like Big Butts” to market a children’s meal? Here’s the ad in question: Extended version This is one of the classic Responsible Marketing questions [...]

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Finally, a real iPhone killer…or is it?

By on April 1, 2009 in creativity, viral marketing, word of mouth

Forget the Google G1 phone—the amazing Pomegranate phone is the first phone that, on the surface, looks like a real iPhone killer. If you think the features are over the top, you’ll be shocked when you click on the “release date” button in the upper right hand corner. So, what do you think? Subscribe to [...]

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Make it fun, get people talking—and sell more

By on March 31, 2009 in creativity, economy, fun, word of mouth

Not every business is struggling amid the economic downturn. Discounters, companies that help people save money, banko attorneys and the repo man aren’t the only businesses thriving. Cheerful products that provide a respite from the real world are selling. Products like the Oh Snap! Cheese Board and Cutter and The Bubble Calendar are selling well, [...]

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A Lost Generation of creatives? I think not.

By on March 26, 2009 in creativity, simplicity, socially responsible, videos, viral marketing, word of mouth

My colleague Martin always says, “when you have a great concept, the design doesn’t have to work so hard.” Keep that in mind when you view The Lost Generation, a video that has now been viewed nearly 5 million times on YouTube. The design is minimal—the concept and clever copy carry the day. The first [...]

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The Southwest Airlines Bikini Controversy

By on March 10, 2009 in boycott, creativity, promotion, responsible or not?, socially responsible

Remember a few years ago when a woman was thrown off of a Southwest Airlines plane because her outfit was too revealing? Imagine her surprise when Southwest launched the “SI One,” to promote Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit edition last month. The airline expected controversy, but probably didn’t expect how polarizing the image would be. A few [...]

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On creativity, sidecar moments and marketing

By on February 12, 2009 in creativity, word of mouth

I saw something I’ve never seen before on the way to work yesterday: A thin, jumpsuit-clad man with white hair and beard riding a 70′s-era motorcycle with a sidecar. Just the sight of him sent my imagination racing: Who was he? How old was he? What did he do? What was he like? Did he [...]

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The Most and Least Responsible Super Bowl ads

By on February 2, 2009 in advertainment, creativity, polls, responsible or not?

Once again, the Super Bowl was indeed super, but how about the ads? A few ads brought sustained belly laughs, others brought groans. But which were responsible, and which weren’t? For review, visit my Super Bowl XVIII ads page. Cast up to five votes in following polls. If you’d like to weigh in on any [...]

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Super Bowl XLIII ads

By on February 2, 2009 in advertainment, advertising, creativity, environmentally responsible

Here are all the ads from Super Bowl XLIII, all assembled on one page for your review. Review the ones you missed, then cast your vote for Most and Least Responsible Ads of Super Bowl XLIII. Enjoy. THE ADS Angels and Demons: Trailer Audi: Chase Bud Light: Bud Light Lime Bud Light: Meeting Bud Light: [...]

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Facebook disables BK’s Whopper Sacrifice app

By on January 15, 2009 in creativity, love it or hate it?, privacy, viral marketing, word of mouth

Facebook “helps you connect and share with the people in your life.” But as anyone that has used the service knows, sometimes those connections can become, well, tenuous. Enter Burger King, who last week saw this as not a problem, but an opportunity to help Facebook users cull the unworthy using an un-friend app at [...]

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If you can’t beat ‘em, sponsor ‘em

By on January 13, 2009 in advertainment, authenticity, creativity, social media, videos, viral marketing, word of mouth

With nearly 109,650,000 views-to-date, Judson Laipply‘s Evolution of Dance is the most popular video in YouTube history. He’s back with the official sequel, Evolution of Dance 2—this time presented by Saveology.com and powered by PeopleJam.com. I’d never heard of PeopleJam or Saveology before today. My bet is you never have, either. Considering most viral videos [...]

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