Like Ad, Dislike Ad

I love Hulu.com (no, I don't have a TV) and I just noticed that they have a "like ad" and "dislike ad" button on the side of the screen. Kind of smart.

Super Bowl and Pepsi

Change is good...

"According to the Associated Press, Pepsi will not be advertising its beverages in next year's Super Bowl, effectively ending a streak that began in 1987. The soft drink giant will instead shift its focus to marketing efforts that will mostly appear online.

Starting next month, the brand will unveil the "Pepsi Refresh Project," which will pay out at least $20 million for projects people create to "refresh" communities. A web site for the initiative goes live on January 13th where people can list their projects, which will then be put up for public vote on Feb. 1."

BlogHer Conference and Sponsorship

BizBash has a Q&A with the events manager at BlogHer. I like how the conference sponsors understood that they needed to add value to the conference experience and engage the attendees. Here is the full article on BizBash.

Guggenheim's New Restaurant, Wright Opens on Friday

The Guggenheim's Wright Restaurant opens to the public on Friday for lunch!

"A modern American menu created by David Bouley protégé, Rodolfo Contreras, emphasizes seasonal, local, and sustainable ingredients, appealing to savvy palates of New Yorkers and discerning travelers from around the globe."

Dinner service will begin in mid-January.

All About Marketing: Simplicity vs Minimalism

Last week I attended an interesting symposium at the Museum at F.I.T. The presentation by Kohle Yohannan was excellent and really hit home in a marketing sense. Kohle's topic was The Small Town Girl and the Femme Fatale: Claire McCardell & Vanentina. I don't expect you to know about these two designers, but the point I want to make is that they had different marketing styles. Claire McCardell was all about mass marketing (affordable) and simplicity. Valentina on the other hand was about exclusivity (expensive), "cult of the celebrity" and dressing the best of the best.

The take away: It's all about the marketing. You may have the same dress, same material, same cut but your message and attitude is what matters. McCardell sold dresses for a very reasonable price at the time (simplicity) and Valentina inflated the price point because she could (minimalist)...she was dressing celebrities such as Greta Garbo, Gloria Swanson, Katharine Hepburn, Millicent Rogers, and Audrey Hepburn.

So, where are you in the spectrum of marketing? A McCardell on the cover of Time Magazine, or Valentina, a carefully constructed persona and lore of your subject?

DIY at Museum of Arts and Design

The Museum of Arts and Design has a fun interactive event this Thursday called DIY Salon.

"Join MAD in the Open Studios for a night of hands-on art making, music, food, and drink in celebration of the Museum's current exhibition Slash: Paper Under the Knife. Local do-it-yourself artists will demonstrate their personal skills and help guide you in creating your own paper-based projects. Techniques will range from book-making to jewelry-making, among other cut paper projects. In addition to do-it-yourself workshops, the DIY Salon will include drinks, snacks, and a live DJ. Guided tours of Slash will be available. Over 200 people did-it-themselves at this event last year, so don't miss out this time around!"

DIY Salon III: Cut Paper
Thursday, December 10, 6:00 PM
$10/$7 members (tickets at the door)

Daily Candy, Oh My

I used to live by Daily Candy to tell me where the "new" things were. Now, uh, not so much since they posted the same PR stuff as Urban Daddy on the same day.

I actually believed in Daily Candy's biz model but I guess things aren't going so well for them lately:

"DailyCandy is eliminating the special editions for seven of its twelve cities, according to an internal memo we've obtained, resulting in almost as many layoffs. NBC Universal, take heed: Even inside Comcast's profitable umbrella, no one is safe from cutbacks."

They used to be insiders but the growth of interactive, community and social media kind of killed them. Food for thought. News is instant, no longer print, no longer scheduled or controlled.

It's in our hands.

Events, The Well-known Secret

I was sitting in a planning meeting about an event to be held this May. Someone said, "If we could only get a celebrity to attend the event." I then said, "You can! If you have $10,000, you could get a celebrity to show." The group looked at me in shock. Gosh, I thought everyone knew about well known secret of celebrity wranglers.

From a BizBash article in 2005: "Wranglers may charge a per-celebrity rate or a flat fee based on an estimate of their time, the number of celebrities needed, the difficulty of securing positive RSVPs, whether the client is corporate or nonprofit, the event's location, the amount of motivating perks and gifts, and the complexity of logistics. While the cost can range greatly, one professional wrangler says getting a dozen or so celebrities to attend an event will run $10,000 to $20,000 on average, plus any expenses."

Too Small for Sponsorship? Nope

I had a conversation with a small arts organization today. They told me that they were too small to have a sponsorship strategy in place.

Too small to have a sponsorship strategy? I don't think so. I think the issue is lack of knowledge around sponsorship opportunities.