photo credit: dieyoungforeverpretty
Philidelphia Cream Cheese has been extremely active in the social media world lately.  They launched a large outreach about 6 months ago in which they sent out Philly recipe books and encouraged  people to make something and write them back about it.  I got the recipe book but the outreach was really close to Christmas, I got busy,  I’m not a great cook, and I prefer my cream cheese loaded on a bagel with nothing cooked about it.  I doubt they wanted that recipe…. it’s pretty easy.
Anyway, Philly …

The last night I was in San Diego for the OMS conference I’m sitting with a table full of people and we are tired and burnt out so we are giggling like 6 year olds about how many times we’ve been told to “listen” as part of a social media plan that day.  The conversation went something like:
“Hey, have you thought about listening to social media?”
“yeah….. that is a good idea!  Or maybe, before that I should listen first!  hahaha!”
It was literally about 20 minutes of pure immaturity which you’ll …

Vitamin Water has been working hard to capture the energy of the Olympics in its marketing lately with bus stop take-overs and clever writing.  I’d definitely give it a sit.

I have to say, I’m a little nervous about the Sprite Spark program launching in March.  No doubt they researched, spent good money, and tried really hard to make an amazing integrated social plan.  At the end of all of this research they have determined that “fresh ideas and experiences are important social currency for teens”  to which I wonder if the person who delivered this expensive bit of news was dressed in a Captain Obvious costume.What Sprite has cooked up is “Innovative TV commercials, an online …

I’m surprised.  Surprised that I’m actually spotlighting a breakfast cereal for their cool concept when honestly, there hasn’t been much of anything really interesting or progressive going down with cereals in a while.  Cereals were king of the television ad.  They almost all have mascots like tigers, elves, vampires, and all sorts of other animated beings to get kids attention.  Because that’s who eats cereal right?  Kids?Wrong.  Case in point: one meal I made on a first date was in fact Fruity Pebble rice krispy squares.  I think there’s a …

I am officially obsessed with making my own corn tortillas.  I’ve been making them at least twice a week and I’ve moved on to offering to come over to friend’s houses and make a stack for them as well.  I’ve been using this tortilla press on the left and a hot griddle (dry) and it only takes about 20 minutes to make 20 or so tortillas.  The best part is that all you need to make them is Masa Harina flour, a little pinch of salt, and water so you …

Skittles made a lot of headlines when they changed their homepage to be their Twitter feed.  It was new, interesting, and got them a lot of attention.  Now, they’ve gone and changed the site again.  It’s hard to talk about it unless you’ve seen it so go and look at it here.  I’ll wait.It’s pretty odd right?  It’s both full of social media and strange as all hell. It’s got lots of video, pictures, and links to their social pages which is usually a good thing.  What I’m interested in …

This post is one I’ve been thinking about for a long time and now that some agencies are pushing to retain creative rights to their ideas throughout the process, it’s doubly relevant.  I really suggest you read the article in Adage, it’s clearly a growing problem.  When you’re a creative team or shop and you make your money by crafting and then executing ideas (designers, social media folks, artists, etc.) it’s hard to know how much to give clients in order to show off how great you are and what …

 
photo FairyFaye
I hear a lot of talk lately about “doing an online contest” as a way to crowdsource, do something playful and interesting online, and because people think it’s easy.   Having done my fair share of those let me be the first to say that it is NOT easy.  If they aren’t successful, you worry about getting votes, entrants, and publicity.  If the technology isn’t planned out correctly, you will worry that the votes aren’t being counted by the interns correctly or that people are uploading submissions but …

 I woke up Saturday morning with serious cabin fever.  It was 5 degrees again and coffee wasn’t going to be enough.  I wanted to go outside.  Real bad. You may not believe it but I can be quite unpleasant when I’m in the throes of a winter bout of cabin fever.  I have so much respect for anyone who can live in Alaska….  So the New Jersey-ite and I jumped in the car and headed to the Domes in Milwaukee.  To pretend that we were outside.   It’s 3 biodomes …