To those of you longing for the days when a letter-—a real, honest-to-God piece of stationery with someone’s handwriting on it-—arrived in your mailbox, allow me to introduce your soul sister. Emily Barton, a recent addition to the virtual office community, is a letter fiend. Her blog, originally started to document the life of a telecommuter recently tired of that, and moved on to “all things Emily.” In doing so, she devised a New Year’s resolution…the Pen Pal Experiment.
Rather than try to sum up her passion for paper here, why not just link to her blog?
Here you go: Part one (the brainstorm) and part two (a status report).
Why am I including this in the blog? Because I think it’s a brilliant idea for a multi-store promotion that could get a little media attention.
Brick and mortars, if you’re into this, let me know. I’d be happy to get the wheels spinning.
It’s not just radio ads that are getting strange. This one popped up on t.v. last night, promoting a local auto dealer’s featured special (tip: read aloud, in your biggest booming announcer voice):
“We’ll only tell you the price once. We’ll only tell you the price at the end of this ad. We’ll only tell you the price at the end of this ad because once you hear it, you’ll lose track of the facts.”
Lose track of the facts? The sad thing is that I lost track of the price. Was laughing too hard to hear it by the time it finally rolled around. Weird.
It’s amazing what a valuable education I’m getting from the radio these days. Even short hops to the post office and airport seem to be fruitful.
This morning‘s session included a history lesson, thanks to a local car dealership touting:
“…owned and operated by the Anderson family for thirty-five years.”
[click here to continue…]
Heard in a radio spot advertising a local internet service provider:
According to a major consumer magazine (whose name I missed), “We’re the fastest internet provider or at least one of them….”
Did you catch that? They managed to make a statement then retract it in under three seconds. Not even a pause along the way. And no change in inflection. I seriously wonder how many listeners even hear the last part. But I’ll bet most would say the company’s reputation is stellar.
These days, with consumer dollars tight, reputations tie directly to information, and information is plentiful, thanks to the internet. As we’ve seen in the past four days (here and here), all it takes is a home studio with a blog, a stationery store owner who searches online, and another blogger focused on retail to shine light on a vendor’s controversial policy…and, by extension, onto the vendor itself. [click here to continue…]
by Cinda Baxter on February 3, 2009
in Marketing
Do you know your icons? From left to right: Facebook, RSS feeds, LinkedIn, Del.icio.us, and Twitter
We all know that the internet is the great leveler of the retail playing field. Since being embraced by the general public, it’s allowed savvy independent retailers to market on the same scale as their big box counterparts.
Social media allows that competition to ramp up a notch higher, and in my mind, favors the little guy more. You see, it’s built on relationships. Word of mouth. Connecting with customers on a personal basis. You know…the very things independents do best.
[click here to continue…]
Saturday, I received renewal notices for three magazines I subscribe to: one that runs out in May, one in June, and one in September. Three guesses which envelope was emblazoned with “LAST CHANCE!” graphics?
Yup. September. Late September. Nine months away. I’m willing to bet they give me another chance (or twelve).
Several things make me nuts about this jump the gun marketing approach, from the insinuation I’ve somehow forgotten I just gave them money four months ago to the absurd amount of waste created by stacks of reminder mailings to the simple annoyance factor of being continually asked to hand over more money. [click here to continue…]
Morton’s, the upscale dark wood and white linen steak house, has been snagged by the economy. According to a letter in my mailbox this morning, the Minneapolis location has decided to cease lunch service, in spite of being located in one of the country’s strongest downtown business districts. It’s not hard to guess that the move is in reaction to a lack of patrons able to justify a pricey expense account lunch-—even when surrounded by the few conservative banks who remain on firm ground.
To offset some of the loss and attract more fiscally responsible patrons, they’ve added a Bar Bites menu to their ongoing, award winning dinner service.
The point of this missive is not to place another stake (no pun intended) in the heart of the economy, but to point out that reinvention is the key to moving forward. [click here to continue…]
By Al Roker in this morning’s Today Show segment featuring the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas:
“This is called the Microsoft Surface…. It’s like having a giant iPod where you can play video and all kinds of stuff and get information on the side!”
That would be the iPod by Apple.
Pepcid, Bill Gates is calling.
