Usually I’ve not subscribed to the theory that if all the other kids are doing it, I should be doing it too.

As examples I never smoked, drank or did drugs. I’m not better than anyone who does those things (although I think its a rare case where I may be considered smarter) but I just never felt the need to fit in socially with such crutches. My obnoxious personality has always seen me through.

But lately as I have been studying Twitter, I did develop a case of wallpaper envy. You see for some reason (and for the life of me I cannot figure out why this happened) I clicked on CC Chapman’s Twitter home page and saw his very attractive wallpaper that he obviously created (you have to sign in to see it).

It occurred to me that this might be yet another example of a fad or trend that I had been completely oblivious to so I checked Chris Brogan’s, Leesa Barnes’ and Christopher S. Penn’s pages.

Yup, fancy, cool, well branded wallpapers on all of them.

I was yet again late for lunch; I had missed the bus, I was an east coaster working on Central time. Action had to be taken.

Well I slogged through about 20 me-made designs that technically and artistically looked like crap (clearly all the aforementioned have Macs) before I yelled “uncle” and called Ann Hackett over at aHa designs to bail me out of my pathetic state. She did.

OK, so I’m “me too” on this one. But doesn’t the page look subtle and smashing? Why, it’s Twitterific!

Tags: advertising, branding, commentary, marketing, social media, social networking, twitter by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
1 Comment »

Now I will grant you that even I, your humble author and blatant swag aficionado, find suspect a glowing report about the value of advertising specialties that was released by (and – in only my opinion – likely also commissioned by) the Advertising Specialty Institute. I am as skeptical as the next solopreneur (tip of the hat to Leesa Barnes for my word of the day).

None the less, I think many small businesses would raise an eyebrow to learn that promotional products generate a cost-per-impression average of $0.004, compared to $.033 for national magazine ads or $0.019 for prime time TV ads. If those numbers are real, that means something because the cost of delivering an ad specialty is individually and collectively less expensive than most other media. This report claims now it is also more effective in impressions.

The challenge, as one who has created a few of these items (and by few I mean a few thousand over my career) is to find items that will be memorable or wearable or most importantly desirable in the eyes of your target or prospective market.

Sure, your father-in-law wants a logoed baseball cap and maybe your wife (like mine) enjoys the oversized coffee mug. But what about a digital media producer who creates sales and marketing videos for global corporations? Does a logoed pen make you a more valuable vendor? If he needs a pen at the exact moment of delivery, one would have to say yes.

Anyway, as you begin to plot your 2009 marketing plan (you ARE plotting it, aren’t you?) you might find in a down economy that giving someone in business even a small gift may go a lot further in building a relationship than it might have even one year ago.

I’ve got no white-paper-scientific-survey-type data on it. Just a good old hunch, for whatever that’s worth.

Tags: advertising, commentary, marketing by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on slap a logo on it

If you hadn’t heard, Pepsi (my primary drink of choice) is going through a rebranding process.

The change, across all the soda’s brands, was leaked last week. If you caught my post on Twitter, I forewarned you.

There’s been a boatload of money thrown at this change, believe it.

It’s um, not good.

Now while I don’t care for the re-design, I do heart how they are tying in the digital world to promote it. This is a good use of public relations and social media. And no I am no offended that as a life long dedicated Pepsi drinker I didn’t get this Pepsi Care package. I know my place in the social media world (2nd from the bottom) and I’m cool with it.

Oh and Pepsi, who also owns Tropicana Orange Juice, is completely re-branding that line as well (this I like a bit better). Look for the new designs on a store shelf near you soon.

Full details from Brand New on Pepsi and Tropicana.

UPDATE:
Here is a video highlighting the old looks and the new looks. The side by side comparisons make the new design look even worse to me.

Tags: advertising, branding, commentary, logo design, social media by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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The periodic table of elements is a staple of most high school educated Americans. Likely the rest of the world has learned about the table in kindergarten.

But I have not every seen the table segue into the branding and marketing arenas until now.

Kudos to Kolbrener USA for this very creative and insightful take on their periodic table of marketing and branding.

Scroll around, you may get answers to marketing definitions you were embarrassed to ask about.

Tags: advertising, branding, marketing by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on thinking creatively with existing tools

Another great night in Rochester, NY for 6th Annual RAF Freelance Creative Expo, held at the Memorial Art Gallery Ballroom.

While only about 90 minutes away from me I don’t spend enough time with clients in the area so this is a nice time to catch up with some old friends and make new ones. In fact my thanks to Ken from Studio 2B for shooting the pic of me at the booth.

Lots of great leads to follow up on. My thanks to everyone who visited my table at the expo.

Tags: advertising, audio'connell voice over talent, commentary, marketing by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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It is not new technology per se but because it’s being executed now in beta by Google Labs, Google’s introduction of a new service that will catalog all the words uttered from a posted an audio or video clip is news. It’s a game changer.

A company with billions of dollars and oodles of clout can do that.

This new audio indexing service directly impacts the businesses of voice over, marketing and advertising (and, well, actually every business that uses the web) in a monumental way.

Of course I’ll tell you why. 😉

A company’s success or failure on the web can be attributed, in my opinion, to one primary element: words. How a company manages and places its words on the web, whether it be in text, header bars, and ad words etc. creates results and rankings in search engines like Google that can mean success or failure.

Do you think companies interested in buying your product or service are going to sift through 10 pages on Google to find your 100th ranked search results after they have find what they need in the first two or three pages on Google? The odds are very low.

Using words correctly on a web site, key words particularly, is both an art and a science. But our audio and video clips haven’t had much of an impact on SEO save for maybe a tag here or there. But Google is ratcheting up the game of tag now.

If Gaudi (a bit like audi-o’connell don’t you think?) will catalog words on audio and video clips on your site…the SEO possibilities seem quite enormous. Posted commercials maybe written entirely for the web to enhance optimization. Audio demos that have brand names featured in copy might then have that brand more closely associated with a voice talent. The web becomes a more valuable tool with the automatic transcription of sound into words.

Possibilities = endless.

Want to know what else occurred to me, just for a nano second while ruminating around all these possible changes?

Because of all the words that will eventually be added to search as a result of Gaudi, what it becomes too much for the Google algorithms used as the basis of its current search platform? Or what if they determine that words are not the best element upon which to base their optimization tools? What if they are working on that completely new search engine model right now that will force all of us to totally revise our web strategies?

Wrap your head around that for a minute, won’t you? Don’t worry, the panicky feeling goes away eventually.

Tags: advertising, commentary, google, marketing, search engine marketing, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »