MarketingInsideOut.com

This College Humor video is probably only funny to those of us old enough to have worked with typography. I got a charge out of it.

Reportedly, deodorant manufacturer Right Guard has created an armpit-based method of advertising (dubbed “pitvertising”) with small digital TV screens built into the armpits of shirts. They then hired a team of ‘Pitvertisers’ and sent them out into the streets of London to test the new medium. This has got to be a joke…right?? When I first saw it on Engaget, I assumed it was some kind of weird prank. I did some searching to see if I could find much on it. It could be a joke — he seems to think so. If it is, Right Guard is sure getting some nice exposure since hundreds of sites seem to have picked it up.

A couple months ago, I stumbled on Zuula and tonight I realized I am using it more and more as my main search tool NOT only when I want to get a quick feel for how much traction a client’s marketing effort is getting online, but for most searches. Rather than needing to go to lots of sources to query results, Zuula is a fast way for me to get a snapshot overview of buzz volume and intensity. I can easily use the same advanced syntax I use regularly, but do it on all major engines, plus blogs, video, images and more…at one time and right from one common interface on Zuula.

Zuula is a meta search, which isn’t anything new because others like Dogpile and Mamma have been around a while. Some might call it an aggregator, but technically it’s not, because it provides results from each search engine separately. And that’s what I really like about it. Unlike Dogpile that mashes all the results from various sources together on one page, Zuula presents the results in tabbed format. So I can just click on each of the tabs and get the results I need. And it does blogs, video, images, news and jobs as well as web. To me the advantage of Zuula’s tabs vs Dogpile’s mashup is that I can quickly discern potential volume and reach because at a glance I can tell if Google results are heavier than MSN or vice versa.

Other things I like are:

• It keeps a history of my recent searches which helps with tracking.
• All ads are pushed to the right to clearly distinguish paid results from organic. It doesn’t have the sponsored in-line results like most aggregators.
• If you are looking for images, the image search lets you see thumbnails directly from the image searches on Google, Yahoo, Live, Photobucket, Picasa, Flickr and more.
• It is simple, and I really like the interface.

And most of all….tonight I did in 15 minutes what it use to take me 90 minutes to do. Which rocks!

The only downside is Zuula is harder to type than Google.

There’s something to be said for human judgment. Although this did make me laugh. But I bet that wasn’t the intention.

Via Dear Jane Sample

So strange. Yet so strangely entertaining. Can’t remember the last time I spent so much time in the closet, but I was bent on trying to figure out how to control the odd characters in this site. I’m not positive whether there’s a story line here that ties the scenes together or some deep meaning. But it is a very engaging IKEA brand experience even though I can’t read a word of it. I’m pretty sure I got the gist of the experience. The only problem is that I paid little attention to the product. Then again, I already know the product and have lots of alternatives if I want some straight factual detail.

Let me get this right…we Americans get less than other workers abroad…we leave days on the table…AND we feel guilty when we do take vacation. Pretty pathetic huh? But that’s the latest according to a survey commissioned by Expedia.com. Yet as I sit here in my kitchen writing this blog, I find myself one of these sad statistics. See right now I should have been aboard a cruise ship enroute to the Bahamas, but…and isn’t there always…there was work and…

In all fairness, probably a bigger reason for my last minute vacation cancellation had to do with the growing fear and angst I saw in my husband’s eyes at the thought of spending 5 days on a ship with our two teenage daughters after a track record of family vacation fiascos. I’m one of those Mom’s that seems to conveniently forget the past experience of “being trapped in the car or plane, the fighting, screaming, whining, complaining” when I think about the years’ vacation plan. And he remembers them vividly. Well the reality didn’t quite work out like the “Norman Rockwell” vision in my head. So here I sit writing a blog post after a long day of work.

Oh well. I guess this is why I tell my kids that they need to really love what they do for a living cuz they are going to be doing it a lot. And luckily I do.

The makers of AMP Energy have some fun playing off the time-honored tradition of that early morning journey back to your place after a one-night stand — complete with a bad case of bedhead.

Not that I can relate, but I’m sure the core demo this is aimed at can.

We’ve had many discussions the last 18 months at the office about deconstruction and reconstruction…and the constant need to push for enhanced creative problem solving in everything we do including questioning every single part of every process.

It’s a hard thing to do continuously. And often people don’t speak out because they think their idea is just too stupid or different to work. Frankly its an exhausting process because you really have to push yourself and everyone to look from a new perspective and question everything. I sometimes wonder if the benefits will actually payoff especially because most of the changes we make are simple.

But when I saw the new square milk jug at Costco and was curious enough to read about it, I found it surprisingly energizing psychologically even though the packaging and transportation of milk is about as far removed from what we do as anything you could imagine.

It just struck me as such a simple solution with such massive benefits. Yet I’d bet at first the idea seemed too stupid or different to be workable. Most things that end up being great seem to start as far fetched ideas because they break from tradition or convention.

To me, the new square plastic milk jug is a great example of creative problem solving. And the result of people with the guts enough to get past the “well that’s too different to work” syndrome. The result is a win win any way you look at it. They’re square which makes them stackable and compact in trucks and on shelves. The jugs are less expensive because of easier, more efficient shipping (you can ship more at one time). The elimination of milk crates saves labor, water and fuel. So it costs less for the retailer and less for the consumer. Less labor and steps means fresher milk in the store. AND it’s better for the environment. Better all the way up and down the chain…just because of a simple shape change. The only downside seems to be that it’s taking consumers some time to get used to them because they pour different. But in the end, it’s worth the relearning because of the payoff.

I feel more motivated. Maybe I’ll have a glass of milk to fortify me. As soon as I master pouring without spilling.

It’s about time! But this is a major development. For years using Flash meant work arounds or compensating with extra text in order to have the content indexed by Google and the other search engines.

According to a release today: “Adobe is providing optimized Adobe Flash Player technology to Google and Yahoo! to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format (SWF) and uncover information that is currently undiscoverable by search engines.”

And it sounds like it’s going to work with all existing SWF content, across all versions of the SWF file format. And developers won’t have to do a thing with the millions of flash pieces already out there. Sounds like best practices will evolve for creating SWF content that is more optimized for search engine rankings.

Great news.