There’s a road near the Buffalo Niagara International Airport which tunnels under one of the airport’s main runways (depending on wind direction any particular day).

This year this road has provided me with two surprises – both airplane related and none of them tragic or dramatic fortunately.

Early this summer as I was driving down the road in front of me taxied a plane that was blue on the bottom and white on the top carrying that familiar “Engravers” like font that said “UNITED STATES OF AMERICA”. When you are used to seeing “Southwest“, “U.S. Airways” or maybe “JetBlue” taxiing in front of your car, seeing what looked like Air Force One kinda stops you in your tracks.

Well it was not Air Force One but it was (as I found out later) the First Lady’s plane (I’ve no idea of its airborne call sign) who was attending a fund raiser. Maybe not fascinating reading for you but some five months later I remain impressed by what I saw.

The second airplane surprise happened this morning on the same road as a plane was landing (or just taking off…I was driving after all so I’m not going to be 100% on plane details). This was a JetBlue plane with completely unique markings near its underside similar to the picture above.

This Jet Blue plane with its Yahoo and Blackberry sponsored in-flight internet access was a fairly new tool that Jet Blue offered (this article fills in the blanks).

As an active flyer I am desperately hoping all airlines get with this program fairly quickly (and keep it free for goodness sake) so that airtime can be oh so much more productive and, dare I say, enjoyable?! Hint, hint U.S. Airways!

Wouldn’t you like in-flight internet access too?

Tags: advertising, commentary, internet, marketing, technology // Comments Off on “i” in the sky

The kids who slapped this one together put a lot of thought and energy into it.

Very funny parody. Enjoy.

Tags: advertising, animation, commentary, silliness // Comments Off on charlie brown’s ad agency christmas

EDITORS NOTE: To be clear – this is a post about marketing, not about politics. Marketing sometimes disappoints. Politics always disappoints.

Whether or not you voted for Barack Obama for President, if you have any vested interest in marketing (and every business person does) you have to respect what the branding design, plan and execution meant to the success of his candidacy (even if he hadn’t won the election).

The branding of the Obama campaign was a political game changer. In the next election, everyone will try and use this playbook but this branding plan was the inauguration that really matters to marketers.

In my opinion, some people voted more for the concept of Obama and his possibilities than the actual man himself (people at a crossroads or caught up in a euphoric state – as politics can often initiate- often make many decisions that way). Branding had to play a key role in shaping that mind set.

Enjoy watching designer Sol Sender, part of the trio that initially developed the now infamous mark, talk about its birth and evolution. There is not a business in existence that cannot learn a lot from this process.

Part 1

Part 2

Tags: advertising, branding, commentary, logo design, marketing // 2 Comments »

ROCHESTER, New York, December 12, 2008 – – Retail competition is fierce during the holiday shopping season prompting Victor, New York-based Eastview Mall to create a radio and television advertising campaign featuring one of audio’connell Voice Over Talent’s female voice artists.

Encouraging shoppers to “Have an Eastview Day”, the campaign’s spots feature audio’connell voice talent Val promoting a plethora of shopping and dining options for holiday consumers.

>> Click here to watch the commercial! (5MB – WMV)

Located near the Finger Lakes, Eastview Mall is a super-regional shopping center located just off the New York State Thruway and serves Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, New York. There are more than 180 specialty stores, six sit-down restaurants and a Regal Cinema within Eastview Mall.

audio’connell Voice-Over Talent is a worldwide, English language-based voice talent organization. The company also operates International Voice Talents, a company featuring professional foreign language male and female voice actors. It also owns Voice Over Workshop, which provides professional voice over training to novice and experienced voice talent world-wide.

audio’connell Voice-Over Talent and International Voice Talents provide voice talent for commercials, animation, corporate narrations, documentaries, broadcast voice imaging, audio books, podcasts and messaging on-hold (MOH). Industries served by the two companies include advertising agencies, media and broadcast production companies as well as both large and small businesses around the world.

audio’connell Voice-Over Talent, International Voice Talents and Voice Over Workshop are all a part of O’Connell Companies.
– 30 –

NOTES TO EDITORS

Company Media Releases ON LINE:
http://www.audioconnell.com/media

Company Name Pronunciation:
au·dio·o’·con·nell (awe-de-oh-oh-kah-nel) or au·di-o’·con·nell (awe-de-oh-kah-nel)

Company Name Spelling:
Use lower case letters- audio’connell or audio’connell Voice-Over Talent

Company Web:
http://www.audioconnell.com

Company Blog:
http://www.voxmarketising.com

O’Connell Voice-Over Resume:
See resume here

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Tags: media releases // Comments Off on MEDIA RELEASE – Eastview Mall Holiday Spots Feature Voice Talent from audio’connell Voice-Over Talent

Sorry to have been off line a bit. Much west coast travel to Seattle last week and Pittsburgh and San Francisco this week. Last week in SEA I also came down with food poisoning which forced me to switch from a dinner meeting with Jeffrey Kafer to an evening at Swedish Medical Center in Seattle (nice place if you happen to be sick in Seattle). Again my sincere apologies to Jeff…I would have much rather spent time with you and will again on my next trip.

Alls well now and the travel load shall lighten for a bit.

I came across a recently posted video of the late, great NBC announcer Howard Reig’s retirement that I very much enjoyed watching. This type of thing is NOT the norm for announcers unless they’ve been around as long as Howard. Clearly he was beloved.

P.S. The NBC News team also held a memorial for Howard inside their main news studio on Friday which Brian Williams noted on his blog here.

Tags: announcers, commentary, NBC News, NBC Nightly News, voiceover // 2 Comments »

Between Bob Souer and me, U.S. air carriers pretty much need to bow down and kiss our feet as we have single-handedly kept them in business by buying their airplane tickets.

While I can’t speak for Bob (although I just did but he won’t know it cause he doesn’t read this blog 😉 I have a frequent flyer number with almost every airline (though U.S. Airways and United get the majority of my business based only on routes).

The upside of that is I build up miles that someday I’ll have the time to use (I’m in baby/toddler netherworld right now so time is both precious and a grey area at the same time). The downside is that each of these airlines thinks I need to have their credit card.

And they remind me every month. Today, these three envelopes arrived about 15 minutes ago. More junk mail.

The airlines need additional streams of revenue and likely in the fine print of my frequent flyer sign up I gave them the right to snail-mail spam me but these idiots are wasting money even if a third party banking outfit is likely paying the tab.

Their brand is tainted by all this crap and if it were even possible, as their paying customer I have less respect for them than ever before.

Do you get a lot of airline junk mail too? Or other crazy junk mail associated with something you’re a part of or a member of? What have you done about it?

Tags: advertising, branding, commentary // 6 Comments »