Australian Honda jazzpacking ads cross international borders with recognizable YouTube sensation Bangs

Honda in Australia came out with a series of Honda Jazz commercials that I liked so much, I had to watch them all. The series pokes fun at hipsters, rappers, ninjas and weight-lifting meat heads. And while they may have offended some segments of the population, it in an odd sort of way appealed someone like myself, who most marketers would classify as a mainstream member of society – even though I live in the U.S.

Anyways, I though they were funny, so I thought I would share them.

A really smart creative, created one of my favorite commercials by featuring my man Bangs. You may have heard of his number one YouTube single,  Take U to Da Movies.

Five years ago, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, I entered the corporate work force on a marketing communications team filled with experienced professionals.

In addition to countless side-conversations with my fellow intern at work, I used the internet to read and learn more about how other young professionals have dealt with a variety of situations.

With five years experience and thousands of M&M’s under my belt, literally, I thought I would share some the characteristics and advice that I have found to be most useful.

1. Ask questions. Be curious.
2. Keep your eye on the prize and always work to meet your business objectives.
3. Google everything that you don’t understand.
4. Don’t over complicate marketing communications. (Message – Audience – Channel) Work to optimize each part of the equation and remember to listen as well.
5. Ask intelligent questions to your managers. Pick their brain and learn how they approach their work.
6. Have confidence about what you know, especially when working with people outside of your department.
7. Marketing campaigns are launching daily. Look and learn from them.
8. Share your ideas in a manner that show they are well thought out.
9. Look at the big picture, but manage the small projects like they all matter.
10. Manage quality vs. quantity. Limit uncharacteristic mistakes.

I hope these little tidbits of advice helped you out. If you feel comfortable sharing a few of your own, please do.

Hey Mark,

It’s your boy from Minneapolis and North Dakota State who created a website with profiles for his dorm mates in 2002.

There are some “social media experts” asking you to step down from Facebook. Don’t worry about it. They are just old bloggers who jumped on the bandwagon about three years after you started it.

Facebook for everyone outside of the marketing profession is about keeping up with friends. Not much more. It’s an awesome tool for posting pictures and allowing friends and family members to view them.

Yes, the sweatshirt at the F8 conference was weird, but seriously none of my friends on Facebook cared. They will all still go on facebook tomorrow with at least two invitations to parties happening downtown that they care nothing about.

I know people are also giving you grief about privacy settings, but honestly, if one cared enough about the subject, they would have figured it out.

Keep up the good work,

Allan

Long before my professional career started, websites were built and controlled by high school students and information technology departments.

A decade later, when those same high school students became college students, they started an internet revolution called social media. The movement led to many companies to rely on interns and recent graduates for navigation through this new communication phenomenon.

In both scenarios, marketers and communicators were somewhat limited in how well they managed the messaging. However in 2010, I think we have entered a phase where social media marketing is now better understood and better controlled by upper level management. Seriously, how many events can a marketer go to without sitting in on at least one social media presentation?

With that comes better planning of resources and content. This is contrary to the issues raised by Jason Fried of 37signals in an interview with Forbes.com. He argued that the biggest problem with social media marketing is that the social websites are just tools and that most companies have yet to decide who they are and what they stand for on social media.

In just a few years this will no longer be an issue. Much like marketing departments starting taking back control of their websites asking their IT department to turn them over the keys so they could optimize the site for search engines, they too will start asking questions about how to start a successful group on Linkedin.

The next stage in social media marketing ready to start flourishing will be more meaningful content publishing and consumer interaction led by senior marketing professionals, who are no longer too naive to ask tough questions of interns and recent graduates.

Even thought I am not a mom, I had a nice Mother’s day. I had lunch with my mother and two grandmothers. I had to getting going because I was finishing up putting together a shed in my back yard, but upon winding down I saw a nice Mother’s day commercial by Proctor & Gamble. With no further ado, here it is:

When considering building a micro site. Think user experience.

Opponents of building micro sites argue that it makes dollars and sense to drive traffic to subdomain or a special section of a larger site. That way users are forced to experience your entire brand and hopefully they will become engaged with more than one specific product or bit of information.

The question is, do users want to experience it all?

Most users when searching for something on Google expect to find exactly what they are looking for. If they don’t find it very easily, they’ll pop right back to Google and visit another page. That ultimately hurts your business and your ranking.

Micro sites because of their size, lend themselves well to search engines and to users who really want specific information. They also lend themselves well to designers who don’t have to deal with strict parameters of making the special section fit within a larger site.

If you really want your visitors to experience your entire brand. Find a way to make it obvious where your visitors can go to learn more. Just don’t be too over the top. Blinking red text screams scam and users usually don’t like to be fooled. One of the best methods of creating a conversion online is making the user feel empowered like they came up with the idea. Baiting them into a area might cause them to walk away from something that feels fishy.

To build or not to build a micro site? Go for it!

To follow up my last post, it appears as though USC is selling hope for the 2016 season with the verbal commitment of a 13-year-old, David Sills from Delaware.

I wonder if Lane Kiffin still be a USC in 2016? The Orlando Sentinel reported Kiffin recruited a 13-year-old while at Tennessee. I wonder what that kid is thinking now? I hope the NCAA steps up with the regulation here.

Watch Videos of USC Commit David Sills:

What do you think?

Today was national signing day for NCAA college football teams. For some reason, it seemed like the hype was higher than years past.

ESPN.com dedicated their entire home page to signing day announcements and the subject was searched for more on Google more than the massive Toyota recall that affected 3.8 million cars.

ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption debated whether national signing day was receiving too much attention.

As a marketer, I would say no. National signing day is all about selling hope for the future. Tickets are sold and sponsorship deals based on the hope that we as fans all feel.

As a former Division-I football player though, I would use some caution. Fans need to remember that a lot of development can take place between the ages of 17 and 22. Rankings and grades tend to be fairly useless. We just don’t know how injuries and unforeseen circumstances will play themselves out.

For more on the where the nation’s best three-star, four-star and five-star recruits landed, check out espn.com.

What do you think? Does national signing day get too much attention?

It’s unpleasant for most marketing or any professionals for that matter to think about how many hours they are spending reading and sifting through emails.

In 2010, one of my (many) points of focused personal improvement is on my overall work efficiency. Not that I don’t enjoy getting my mind going a little later in the evening, but at some point, being married and a home owner must rule the day.

I asked my wife, a public relations professional, how she manages her email and she enlightened me about the four D’s of managing email overload.

1. Delete it
2. Do it
3. Delegate it
4. Defer it

I should mention that neither of us can take credit for this clever wordplay. Upon further review I found it actually came from a Microsoft blog of all places.

To look at the four D’s a little bit closer: If it’s unimportant delete it. If you can do it in less than 2 minutes, do it. If you can delegate it to someone else, forward it and if it is a little bit bigger than that, defer it to a folder in your email reader.

And finally a word to all my Gen-Y friends on the bottom of the totem pole feeling overwhelmed. When starting out at a new job, you will most likely be delegated some unglamorous time consuming tasks. My simple word of advice is to handle it and learn from it as best you can. If you work hard enough one day, you too will be able to delegate more freely.