Mark Wanczak

If you were drawn in to the emotional news stories from Haiti this week and forgot what was happening elsewhere, you’re not alone. Fortunately, I gathered most of these stories before the ‘quake struck. If you haven’t, donate now.

Here’s what you missed this week:

1. Everyone’s talking about Dominos. Reactions are mixed on the pizza company’s approach to launching a new pizza. I think they haven’t changed a thing and it’s one big hoax on us all. Instead of evidence to support this theory, I give you two opinions on the campaign, from Bob Garfield and Laura Reis.

2. Gatorade also faced some controversy this week when a “pop artist” swapped the sports drink’s inspirational labels for something less… inspirational:

3. One brand that could use some coverage this week? Google. Their new Nexus One phone is tanking quick, selling only 20,000 phones in the first week. Note to Google: Advertise!

4. Or maybe Google should take a hint from Kraft who is now sponsoring the implosion of Texas Stadium for $75k. Come on Kraft, hire me for 75k and I’ll come up with far better ideas.

5. Go big or go home seems to be a trend not just limited to Kraft. Check out this latest spot from LG:

6. If you saw one of those 50-foot bras hanging off a building, you might post a pic to Facebook. An anonymous Facebook insider reveals that your photo and every other one you’ve ever uploaded will be kept forever by the social networking giant. Very informative and impressive interview.

7. If you have Google Alerts set up for yourself, you’re probably noticing random tweets of yours showing up in Google. How does Google determine which tweets are good enough? Read this.

8. Simplicity is a reoccurring theme here, but former Pittsburgh (is there really such a thing?) Justin Kownacki reminds us that simplicity can be taken too far.

9. Quote of the week:

The most frustrating part of running an ad agency is that sometimes you are at the mercy of people you wouldn’t hire to sweep the lobby.

- The Ad Contrarian

10. The weather is finally starting to break here in Pittsburgh, a cause for celebration and happiness. So I leave you with Coke’s version of happiness. Have a great weekend.

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Between The Cracks is a weekly roundup of noteworthy links that you may have missed. It is most definitely not a weekly commentary on defecation. Get your mind right.

Here’s what you missed this week:

1. Haven’t had enough of the AT&T/Luke Wilson commercial bashing? Read some more.
2. Google quietly releases Goggles, allowing you to search by picture taken from your phone. Sick.
3. If you had $500 to spend on a digital campaign, what would you do? I bet it’s not as smart as this.
4. Social media gives branding a bad name. The Grumpy Brit straightens it all out for us. (Love the last line of this)
5. How to make street flyers a little bit better.
6. Think online video is huge? Think again.
7. Dave Trott takes simple soccer advice and eloquently applies it to advertising. Love it.
8. Worst post of the week: 137 Twitter Marketing Tips for Small Businesses. 137? Really? Twitter is the simplest tool on Earth, don’t complicate it.
9. Best post of the week: The Content Strategist as a Digital Curator. Really unique perspective on managing online content. Long but certainly worth it.
10. Timely post of the week: The Art of Manliness Holiday Gift Guide 2009. Definitely asking Santa for that vintage tweed MP3/Radio.

Not satisfied? This 5-minute video of Dan Wieden should do the trick.


Between The Cracks is a weekly roundup of noteworthy links that you may have missed. It is most definitely not a weekly commentary on defecation. Get your mind right.

A brief round-up of what caught my eye this week, in no particular order:

1. Steffan Postaer over at Gods of Advertising nicely reviews Southwest Airlines’ new “Bags fly free” tagline.
2. The New York Times launched a new way to read the newspaper online. Big fan of this idea.
3. 10 Ideas for Transforming Advertising.
4. Want to know why Google doesn’t see your inbound links? Best SEO Blog breaks it down for you.
5. I loved the campaign and I love the car. Scott Monty summarizes the Ford Fiesta marketing effort. Pay attention, GM.
6. An illustrated guide of eight ways to kill an idea.
7. Warren Berger at the AIGA tells us about four things he’s learned about designers. (via @JasonSpector)
8. There’s a guy in a desert in Spain camping next to a pay phone. Call him.
9. To Hell With Personal Branding
10. Huge fan of McSweeneys’ ‘Lists” feature. This one is entitled, “My MFA Workshop Responds to My Twitter Status Updates.” If you laugh at this, we can be good friends.

Here on the blog, my favorite examples of advertising usually relate to video, but it’s time to give Twitter its due. I have my Twitter stream open all day and can’t overstate its importance on keeping me up to date on just about everything, including the latest clever use of Twitter from the MGM Grand hotel in Las Vegas.

The hotel (whose sales are down 25% this year) is turning to Twitter users for public admission of sins to help spark business. Twitter users are encouraged to tweet their sins (Vegas = sins) along with the #mgmsin hashtag, which the hotel will monitor and award a free nights stay to a random guilty tweeter each day for  30 days.

The hashtag also allows bored bystanders (yours truly) to monitor the stream and read some gross curious sins (see above). The real kicker to this campaign is what MGM will be doing with the tagged tweets. Think projectors. Think big buildings. Think embarrassment:

The campaign kicked off on Twitter, but out-of-home wall projection systems in Los Angeles will shine the confessions from dusk until 2 a.m. on the side of buildings, such as Staples Center, Nokia Theatre and LA Live complex in Downtown LA, and Hollywood and Highland.

-From MediaPosts’s coverage of the campaign, read more.

I say Kudos to the MGM Grand. Original idea and creative execution. Let’s see how it plays out.

We’ve all seen the case studies. The coffee shop that saw triple digit increases in sales. The food and ice cream trucks that are driving customers to their location each day. Even the Sunset Strip is (desperately) turning to Twitter. Judging by the many success stories, Twitter seems to have a well-deserved, proven place in the small business marketing toolbox.

But will it stay that way?

Small business turn to Twitter for a variety of reasons, none more important than its simplicity and cost. If I told you that your business could potentially increase sales using a free marketing tool that’s incredibly easy to use, you would certainly give it a try.

Over and over again, we hear that all Twitter and other social media tools cost us is our time. But what’s your time worth? What’s your hourly rate from 9-5? Why stop calculating at 5pm? If you make $15/hour, is it worth $15 for you to spend an hour a day on Twitter? Will you see an extra $15 in sales for your small business?

Perhaps the bigger question to ask is if you spend an hour a day on your other marketing efforts? Is Twitter’s free cost leading small businesses to rely too heavily on the popular tool? I can’t help but think that some businesses, who already have cut their marketing budgets, are giving social media an increasingly share of marketing time and dollars.

Is Twitter’s success and quick adoption due in part to the fact that we all have more free time in a recession to spend on something like social media? I think it may. And this leads me to question small business marketing priorities once the economy turns around and there’s money to spend.

Will small business turn to the proven, traditional marketing efforts and begin to phase out social media as their business picks up and grows, as they don’t have time to sit in front of the computer for a few hours a day?

We all use Twitter to learn, but most Twitter advice points users to follow the best and brightest in a particular industry. Effective advice, sure, but don’t we also learn from what not to do just as much as the opposing alternative (see #fail)?

We shouldn’t treat Twitter as any different. Just like anyone else, I want to discover new or different trends and outlets from those I follow, and I’m guessing most want the same in return. We all get the give and take, the foundation of efficient Twitter use.

But I have to admit, I’m guilty of following people just to take.

I’m no Twitter expert (are there really any, given Twitter’s stark simplicity?), but the established taboos provide a litmus test for qualifying follow backs. Not RT’ing anything good or at all? Constant self-promotion? No follow backs for you.

But here’s the thing– the people who often come across as promotional or make a habit of Twittering the mundane details of life seem to be the ones claiming some kind of social media expertise or experience.

While I don’t like these tweeps, I can’t stop following them. I look forward to the next tweet telling us social media’s all about sharing ideas, then seeing six songs from Blip in a row.

Am I a social media expert? No, I’m not even sure what being an expert entails. I’m unsure why social media people only get to add ‘expert’ to their title, when the rest of the professional world uses real, established and recognized titles like manager or director. Expert is self-proclaimed, unsupported and unsubstantiated.

Adam Singer at thefuturebuzz.com said it best, “You don’t need a social media expert, you need a good marketer.”

One of the great things about Twitter is that other people get to peek through a tiny, 140-character-sized window into your life a few times a day. Most of us have a purpose behind our Twitter use, professional networking, personal branding or just for fun. Our followers recognize where we fit and overlap among these three options and can choose to unfollow or hang around.

It’s common perception that those who constantly self-promote will fail at professional networking or even personal branding on (and off) Twitter, whether it’s in the form of no follow-backs or poor quality of followers. Those using Twitter just for fun, to connect with real-life friends and other reasons, have nothing to lose.

I heard Guy Kawasaki say on a webinar that Twitter is a marketing tool, so why shouldn’t it be okay to  self-promote? Guy uses his Twitter account to promote his site Alltop fairly frequently and I still follow him because he lets through some great info in between the Alltop tweets. Guy is also very well known and respected among industry peers, an impression I’ve gathered from other well known marketers referencing Guy on a regular basis.

Guy is promoting a useful site, not himself. After following Guy for months, I have no reason to believe that Twitter Guy Kawasaki is unlike the real life Guy Kawasaki. And I like that. I don’t want to be deceived.

On the other hand, you have people tweeting in the same way as Guy, but, instead of promoting a tool that helps someone, they promote themselves. Of course, this is viewed by many as a Twitter faux pas, and rightly so. If you’re not helping anyone else, why would we listen to you.

But what about those who promote the idea of idea sharing, yet seem to contradict themselves?

Is it possible that this is an unfair snapshot of Scott’s Twitter usage? Sure. But I’ve followed Scott for months, and it’s always bothered me how he seems to contradict the very advice he gives daily. Is Scott a great guy in person? I’m sure he is. But this is also Twitter, and either Scott or Guy could have bodies locked up in their basements and I’ll never know.

My point is that I feel like I have a good grasp on Guy without ever having met him. Because of his inconsistencies, I can’t say the same for Scott. Does any of this really matter? In the long run, probably not. But this is part of the process I use to not just follow someone, but to take their information, links, data, and tweets seriously.

I’m always looking to learn more, whether it’s about online marketing or green building.  I use those I follow on Twitter as experienced guides and resources. I suspect many do the same, not everyone has the pleasure of sharing an office with Chris Brogan.

Can I trust what your telling me, who you are?

So you’re having a bad day. Maybe it’s the weather that just won’t accept that it’s April and it shouldn’t be snowing. Maybe you owed the government a bunch of tax money. Maybe I Love New York was a repeat last night.

You’re in a funk, but there’s work to be done. How do you break free from the little depressions of every day life and pump yourself up to produce some great work?

We all have the old standbys– an upbeat song, a phone call to Mom (just me?), a long drive with the windows down, music up. But we can only call on these sources so often or else we risk diluting their inspirational influence.

Here are some of the things I turn to for boosts of inspiration or motivation. Tricking myself into producing work I’m happy with isn’t easy, but I’ve spent a lot of time finding the things that get the job done.

McSweeneys “Lists”

McSweeneys is a wonderful literary journal with superb online content. You can spend hours (trust me) on the journal’s site reading through a bunch of great series covering everything from one-line jokes to dispatches for Iraq. This variety, from serious to humorous, makes McSweeneys a reliable source no matter your mood. My favorite section is “lists,” clever compilations of one person’s take on a familiar topic, such as Joel Gunz’s, “Secure Website Authentication Questions.”

Twitter

Ok, ok, I know it’s an obvious choice, but isn’t inspiration one of the reason we use Twitter? Everyday I see the amazing projects people are working on and feel as though I’m behind the curve. Sure, it can be overwhelming (depressing) at times comparing yourself to others in similar positions, but it drives me to keep up.

Band of Brothers

Band of Brothers is the all time best thing ever to appear on a television screen. Twitter inspires me by showing me what others in my industry are doing. Band of Brothers takes this comparative inspiration to a larger level by showing what humans can do. The book is phenomenal too. Nothing humbles me more.

Really Great Marketing

The image at the top of this post is the wall behind my desk. I plaster it with examples of clever headlines, impressive designs and innovative ideas. Much of the stuff hanging in front of me wasn’t created with a million-dollar budget, but instead relies on the smart, simple and efficient use of existing resources. More with less inspires me to do the same.

Documentaries

Just watched Man on Wire a few weeks ago and, if you haven’t seen it yet, Netflix the crap out of it. Individual passion and relentless determination can prove to be a fault, but also makes for a great way to spend 90 minutes of your time. If a man can devise a plan to walk between the World Trade Center towers on a wire, I sure as hech better be able to write some useful copy.

I’d really love to hear what you rely on to get you through a rough day. Maybe you’ll pick up some tips for other readers. I hope to pick up some tips from you.

If you’re unfamiliar with #FollowFriday, it’s a weekly Twitter event allowing tweeps to recommend the great people they follow to their own followers. Superb idea, right? Right.

Here’s the thing, if you recommend someone, tell me why I should follow them. I’m not going to blindly sign up for anyone’s tweets just because you tell me to do so. Who are the people you’re recommending and why?

If you’re recommending five or seven people at once, I’m sorry, but you’re spamming me and your tweet has no value to me at all. I’m certainly not going to click on each user and figure out who they are and what they do.

Tell me that someone is great SEO resource, tweets great recipies or has an insightful blog on crisis communications. #followfriday is about vouching for someone, can I trust you if you’re vouching for ten different people every week? There are lots of great people on Twitter, but are there that many?

I’ve noticed that in my previous posts that I’ve been a bit on the negative side of things. A Lesson in Twitter Etiquette and 233 Things I Don’t Need From Your Blog Post both are critical of others out there ultimately trying to help us all. This has lead me to reconsider the direction or focus of this space. Is it okay for me to criticize others? Well, of course it is, it’s my blog. But the better question is, are these criticisms representative of myself or my outlook on social media and marketing? The answer is no, they are not.

I look at other blogs like the BadPitchBlog, whose existence is based off of what not to do. So what separates this blog from BadPitchBlog? Success. Experience. Credibility. Basically, everything a good blog should be. Are Richard and Kevin a bit harsh sometimes? Sure, but they’ve earned the right to be.

I have not.

That’s not to say I will not be critical. But I think difference lies in the intent of those doing the criticizing. Are you helping others avoid a common mistake or are you being critical to appear superior in some way? I think I’ve leaned more towards the latter than the former.

So, I offer my apologies and hope you’ll continue to read on. I promise you’ll find a more positive intent on my part.