First World Problems Anthem

A friend's wife posted this recently on her facebook page. It served as a reminder of how some of our so-called "problems", which are really minor annoyances, aren't real "problems".

It's so easy to forget how good we have it. I love the expression "First World Problems" because it reminds me that our current cell phone charging, having to plug in our iPad, etc, problems aren't critical.

I love it when non-profit organizations can take advantage of creative marketing and great ideas. This campaign was created for WaterIsLife.com, a charity that was created to provide clean water solutions to communities in developing countries.

Can't get it up?

A couple of weeks ago, I was driving on the highway on my way to work. Minding my own business, and all of a sudden, I saw one of the best things I've ever seen on a wrapped vehicle:

Photo courtesy of Open Up Garage Doors

My mind was like "What???? I have to see what they're talking about. Speed up! SPEED!"

Now, I was in a construction zone, where the speed limit is 50. I wasn't able to do much speeding, but I made a mental note to get in touch with that company, as that's the best question I've ever seen written on the side of a company vehicle.

Turns out, the "Can't get it up?" truck was from Open Up Garage Doors, a garage door company based in Hurst, Texas.

It still makes me laugh when I think about that truck. Props to Open Up Garage Doors for having the guts to turn heads! Also, thank you to Jenny, their Office Manager, for the picture.

Dr Pepper Ten

Last night I went to my first Dallas Stars hockey game. We had a good time, but I was surreptitiously watching all of the marketing going on most of the time.

According to my family, hockey in the South is not the same hockey that was played years ago in Canada. There is much more of an emphasis on marketing and fighting. But hey, people go to hockey games to be entertained, not necessarily to watch and enjoy the sport.

I think that one of my favorite ads was this one by Dr Pepper Ten:

From Dallas Stars Program

I love the use of Duck Tape spelling out the word "ten" and how Dr Pepper Ten is trying to assert its own manliness with this ad. 

Cheetos & Other Visual URLs

One of the recent Cheetos commercials ends with an interesting way of representing its URL. Here is a screenshot from the end of the commercial:



What impressed me the most is that I've hardly ever seen URLs represented in this way. I started trying to imagine what other companies could get away with using an image of their products and a .com to represent their URL.

Last week, I saw a different representation of a visual URL. This time, instead of typing out facebook.com/sokaglam, I noticed this on the Soka Glam website:

It makes me wonder if this is the future of visually representing URLs. 

Generic Trademarks

Does it ever catch your attention when you talk about qtips, band-aids or Kleenex? I think about it a lot when I use these words. They're brand names of items that we have started using for mainstream items. We not only use these words for Kleenex brand products, but we also use them for off-brand tissues.

It's an interesting phenomenon that has evolved over time. Descriptive terms like jell-o, saran wrap and xerox are used to describe both brand name and off-brand items. It's difficult for the companies that paid to have these items trademarked.

Can you think of any other examples of generic trademarks?

The Islands

Every night for the past few weeks, when I've gotten home, I've noticed our neighbor's colorful Christmas lights. They're both from different Caribbean islands, so the bright colors always make me think of the marketing campaign from the Bahamas.

What I love about the marketing campaign is that it takes the map of the Islands of the Bahamas and morphs them into a colorful graphic. I have always been fond of flags and maps representing countries and people. They are both very powerful things for people to identify with.

It's represented in the last 10 seconds of the following video:

I can't think of any other marketing campaigns where the maps of the destinations are represented so well in the marketing campaigns. I will keep an eye out for them in the future. 

Dallas Digital Summit

My colleague and I spent Tuesday and Wednesday of this week at the Dallas Digital Summit. It is one of several digital conferences around the nation put on by TechMedia.

The conference included speakers from many areas of the digital world. I heard presentations about how influential Twitter is, how tablets and social media were utilized by voters in the run-up to the 2012 elections, and many other topics.

One of my favorite parts was listening to Ben Huh, CEO and Founder of Cheezburger. If you've ever gone to FailBlog, then I hope (dare I say expect) that you've had a really good belly laugh. This man made all of the adorable attitude-ified kitties and intense failures possible. And for that, I thank him heartily.

The Dallas Digital Summit was an incredible way to meet with other marketing and digital professionals and to learn from their experiences.