campaigns

The rumors are that Microsoft is planning to spend between $1.5 and $1.8 billion marketing its newest operating system, Windows 8. It’s a fair guesstimate that we’ll get lots of glossy ads, tons of “content” on social platforms, and pretty much every other trick and tool that a veritably endless amount of money will buy. Some of the stuff will win awards at industry conferences, and some of it will get dinged for being useless.

Vermont’s tourism folks have decided to give up promoting their state to a rotating cadre of residents who’ll tweet whatever they please, following the broad outlines of Sweden’s experiment doing the same earlier this year. Social media evangelists praised both campaigns as “bold experiments” that recognized the immense potential of social interaction.

Did you catch any of those AT&T ads during the Olympics in which a winning swimmer or runner time was actually in the spot like right after somebody won a race? It wasn’t that immediate (though I remember it so), but it was nevertheless an incredibly brilliant example of how the artifice and invention of marketers could produce stories that were as real as reality.

Two current TV commercials have me thinking that they were written by Samuel Beckett: Toyota’s “The Ex” spot for its Camry and Oscar Meyer’s “It’s Yes Food” hotdog ads make us wait far too long for a payoff that proves to be utterly disappointing…not to mention just a stupid violation of basic, tactical rules of 21st century advertising.

by: Jason Miller

It’s a business-eat-business universe and B2B marketers today must utilize social media channels if they want a chance at surviving alone in the deep recesses of space. Businesses that understand the importance of adding social elements to their marketing campaigns empower customers and prospects to share with their networks. This peer-to-peer word of mouth messaging is highly trusted and very effective in amplifying the impact of your campaigns.

I'm rather intrigued by the concept behind this campaign (from earlier this year). To show their versatility, IKEA in Holland made a different TV ad for every day of the year. It's a wonderfully disruptive idea.

In case you haven't noticed, there's no shortage of creative thinking in the marketing world. We're awash with bold, innovative ideas that scuttle old ways of delivering content, while often times daring the truths that have survived the tests of generations (not to mention defying the laws of accounting and physical cause-and-effect).

Microsoft broke its latest ad campaign last Saturday before a football game: "It's a great time to be a family" pushed the company's hardware and software as technologies that bring people together and connect seamlessly.

Chicago's Museum of Science & Industry ("MSI") had a great idea last year: let someone from outside the institution literally "live" there for a month, and let the public see the place through her or his eyes. Sour grapes alert: I applied for the job, but found myself among a few thousand others who lost out to a plucky twentysomething who went on to be utterly boring and forgettable.