Category: The Marketeer

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Geek Stuff Graphic Design

Fantastic Four – and Craptastic Print Ads

I used to spend a lot of time at used bookstores when I was a kid in the 70’s. My mom loved to read, and passed that on to the rest of the family. It’s so funny that these places are, for the most part, a lost relic. There’s a unique smell in a used bookstore as the slowly decaying paper takes on its own odor. There were 3 different ones in Pittsfield that I remember, all three of them a big mess inside, but all filled with treasure. This was before the rise of the comic shop, so these were the only places to get comic books, and more importantly – back issues, because it was easy to miss issues that for some reason never made it to the convenience store.

I used to buy comics for a nickel that had no covers on them, it wasn’t until I was older that I learned that these are illegal copies, paperbacks and comics that were returned from the stores and were supposed to be destroyed. Through some gray market action they made it to the used bookstore.

One day I found a giant size Fantastic Four annual and was blown away by this story with Galactus, Gabriel and his Herald, The Silver Surfer. For years I wanted to get the issues but they are classics and one of them is over $150. The irony is that when they hit that price you don’t ever take them out of the airtight bag they are in. Marvel does have a reprint but it’s in black and white and that just never seems as much fun (the exception being material that was written and drawn with the intent of being in black and white.

In the last place I would expect to run into the power cosmic, I found a DVD at BJ’s (the local warehouse club) – 44 Years of the Fantastic Four. All of the issues, in the original format. It’s been fun to cruise through them and read the old stories, but much like when I finally found DVDs of The Six Million Dollar Man, the stories aren’t quite as tight and thrilling as the 12 year old John remembered, but Stan Lee tells and incredible story, and the artwork is classic. Even more fun has been laughing my ass off at all the original ads – here’s a couple classics:

Old Ads ’nuff said!

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Brain Buster Productivity Buster The Marketeer

Beamvertising

I thought this was cool:

[youtube]hgqZMgRijXo[/youtube]

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Brain Buster The Marketeer

Video Inflection Point

This morning I read Chris Baggott was asking whether video is deserving of the attention it’s getting. I think the short answer is no. I’ve always been impressed with Gartner’s Hype Cycle which is a nice model for explaining some of this (and predicted the bursting of the bubble, speaking of hype).

I was trying to find an image of Gartner’s and came across this post from Mike Slinn. I’ve never heard from him but this post completely kicks ass. In fact, stop reading this garbage I’m writing and go read that. Make sure you understand it and email me if you have any questions.

Ok, so if you bothered to come back (thank you),now we are on the same page and you can see that both Second Life and online video are starting to cross the inflection point on the hype curve. At podcamp Toronto there were some folks saying the SL emperor has no clothes (my absurd copywriting, but I think they would agree with the intent). And I and many others have joked about online video becoming one big “laugh at guys getting kicked in the balls” film festival.

I’m most fascinated with, and trying to come up with a theory about the viral spread of video – it’s something like viral intensity. Video does spread like wildfire, faster than blogs, which are faster than podcasts, but the impact seems to be just as fleeting (and, ergo, ROI). Look at the stories like the producers of lonelygirl, getting millions of hits but not generating anything for them as far as business (at least that’s the word on the web, I haven’t actually heard that from them so that could be BS).

More to think about, but I’m going to go back to laughing at guys getting kicked in the balls.

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Email Marketing The Marketeer

Email State of the Union

Michael Seaton of The Client Side Podcast, and ScotiaBank sent off some questions about email to a group I’m in and I thought that they were interesting enough to share with everyone (along with my answers, of course). Just to set the stage, this year is my 10th anniversary of email (damn, I am so old!). I still have a can of spam trophy for my 1,000,000th email back in my days at DCI.

Here some of the issues/topics I will address with the panel:

1. Personalization – examlpes of good / bad.

The key here is not to screw it up. Not personalizing is no crime if the message is still relevant, and looks better than something that starts “Dear Pujabu (sp?),”

2. Is the audience listenting? Are email metrics on the rise or
decline?

Yes, many people think (and many pundits say) that email is dying. Nothing is further from the truth. Spam may be losing it’s edge, but relevant emails are more powerful than ever.

3. Net generation – when this huge cohort hits the workforce and
begins to emerge as a force in the consumer economy, will email fall
into the catagory of “my parents technology?

Not until there is a viable corporate substitute. Yes, some of those crazy kids use MySpace over email, but would you move your corporate website to a MySpace page? I didn’t think so.

4. Has any new technology (RSS, IM etc..) emerged as is the killer app
in terms of database targeting, personalization and measurement as
email brought to the table?

Nothing out there currently beats an email that has individually coded links to website landing pages. RSS is too early on the adoption curve and IM is more expensive as it is not asynchronous (2 people need to be on at the same time).

5. Is email now part of the traditional maketing mix – has it shed
it’s “new channel” status?

It has in the sandboxes that me and my buddies play in. Print is now a rare luxury.

6. How is it being used effectively as an integrated part of the
channel mix?

It easily substitutes for print at a greatly accelerated timescale (quicker to create, cheaper to send, instant feedback).

7. What are key trends / differences in B2B B2C that you have seen –
either good or bad?

I’d say B2B is more effective as it tends to be more niche. It’s very common to see smaller lists outperform larger ones by a factor of 3 or more. B2C can be tailored to niche customers, but if not then it’s just another broadcast that will be ignored.

8. Social Media and email – discuss…

Just another integration point. For those that are not yet living RSS the only way to stay involved as the conversation continues is to get pushed something. The easiest something is email.

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Email Marketing

Chris Baggott Starts New Enterprise

Chris Baggott of Exact Target is off to start something new on the blog front. Should be interesting to watch…

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The Marketeer

Photos not shared in Flickr

A good post from Chris Brogan today – I was not aware that photos in Flickr are not shared by default. I’m sure it was made clear to me on one of those screens where I signed up for my account that I read none of…

Categories
Lead Generation Podcasting Productivity Booster The Marketeer

Return from Podcamp

Too tired… Just posted M Show.

Pictures of Podcamp Toronto

Video of sessions on Getting your company to Podacast Panel

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Podcasting The Marketeer

I am obsolete

This has been sobering this week. The latest video is done and you can check it out here – Making Playlists and Smart Playlists for Podcasts.

My problem is that the YouTube video is too fuzzy so I decided to try Revver, which looks great. The problem there is that the Revver standard size is too big for this current blog layout. I’m now realizing that basic HTML is dead, if you aren’t a pro with CSS, AJAX and something like PHP that holds wordpress together, you are the latest 1984 K Car.

I threw in the towel and dropped an email to a designer C.C. Chapman recommended.

I hope the video is of some use, but please don’t call me the Johnasaurus.

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Lead Generation Productivity Booster The Marketeer

Trade Show Wars – Top 10 Survival Tips

March is a busy month for me with back to back trade shows, which I refer to as “The Trade Show Wars”. Trade shows really are blood and guts marketing – do the logistics, execute, get the names, and deliver sales “The Glengarry Leads”. I was horrified to realize today that I’ve been doing shows for over 10 years now.

It’s all about the preparation, I have a bunch of checklists I’ve used for many years, comment or email me if you are interested (I’m not going to bother setting up links if none of you care about this at all).

Here’s some productivity boosters for you:

  1. Shoes – Need to look good, but don’t break them in on the floor. Many hardcore folks like black rockports, I’m an ecco man myself.
  2. Carpet – you don’t need the expensive carpet, but get all the padding you can. It keeps the staff happy and after day 2 people will visit your booth just to give their feet a rest.
  3. Meeting Room – I’ve even done this splitting a 10×20 in half and curtaining off half with a nice table and four chairs. You’ll be surprised, if it’s more than 2 days you’ll have prospects visiting just to sit down and they won’t want to get up once they do.
  4. Water, Mints, First Aid Kit – Everyone’s voice takes a beating, they eat crappy food and get bad breath, and somebody always gets cut handling the booth.
  5. Box Cutters and Extension Cords packed in the booth crate – in the old days I had a toolbag I would bring in myself, these days the absolute last thing you want on your trip home is to get pulled from the airport security line for a box cutter in your bag, but you do need a sharp knife for cutting carpet or boxes excessively taped shut.
  6. Heavy duty tape measure in booth crate – if you need to run an extension cord under the carpet you can pay an hour of labor and wait 3 for it to happen or use your own razor to cut the carpet, slide the tape measure through to the edge and use duct tape to attach the cord and pull it through yourself. This is only for last minute changes dictated by the boss, if possible have this marked on your show diagram and the electricians will do this free if it’s ordered by the deadline.
  7. Spare Bulbs – Pack them with the lights, not the kind of thing you need to look for on site.
  8. GPS – This can save your life, I had a screw up once that I was able to fix b/c I was able to get to the nearest Home Depot, get a hacksaw, pipecutter, and a bunch of plumbing stuff in under an hour.
  9. Ship to the warehouse – Most shows you can ship to the warehouse up to a week ahead, or ship direct to the show floor. Always ship early so you can confirm everything has made it. The bigger the show the greater the probability that boxes will be lost in the two days before the show opens.
  10. Get cell numbers on speed dial for your whole team – Do it before you get there and it will save all kinds of time.

I have a secret 11th that I’m not willing to put in print, if you’re a Ronin drop me a line. Have fun! LOL

Categories
Gaming Geek Stuff The Marketeer

I am going to be in Halo 3!

Unless I get outbid on the chance to buy a part in Halo 3, which would seem to be an absolute certainty, but it’s fun to dream. How cool to fire up Halo3 on the Xbox 360 and hear me in the heart of combat?

Update: I only held the top bid for a couple of hours… Looks like I need to scrape up more cash.