Culutral Relevance in a Traditional Ad

It's fairly typical that on Saturday mornings, one of the first things I do is turn on ESPN's Sportscenter. In fact, that is typically what I do every morning. For the first time though, while watching the show, Shirin commented on it. Well - not really the show - but a commercial that ran during it. Here is the commercial:



It's around this time that the commercials for the NBA Playoffs get good. Whichever agency creates and produces these ads knows what they are doing. When Shirin, after finishing listening to the commercial, peeks her head out of the room and says, "That was a really cool commercial", you know it was successful.

I couldn't help but think that this style of commercial was driven by the YouTube success of DJ Steve Porter. In fact, I hope he had a hand in creating these. If you aren't familiar with his work, please take a look. He takes what were traditional TV ads and creates songs from them. My favorite is below:



I love to see traditional advertising using a technique that is culturally relevant and it seems Shirin does too.

EDIT: After following @djsteveporter, I noticed he created the ads themselves. Well done, Mr. Porter.

Foursquare For Businesses

I realize I am late to the game in talking about foursquare.com and the impact it has on social media. But I can't help but think how businesses can successfully use this latest trend. The presentation below gives a good basis of what foursquare is and how businesses can be impacted by it. I thought of an idea for a Scavenger Hunt - either local or nationwide where "Mayors" can earn significant rewards or offers. In fact, I am thinking of a way for EA SPORTS to successfully use it. Enjoy!

Foursquare For Businesses

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Common Sense Beats Social Media

I came across a brilliant Social Media presentation from David Armano. There are many presentations that have the same message and usually with the same tone, but I found this presentation very refreshing. All brands should look at this and think about how their brand participates with social media.

Thanks for Dave Knox for sharing; too bad he wasn't involved with the Brandcenter when I attended.

Social Media Is Dead: Long Live Common Sense.

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A Life Filled with Learning

“When I first met your grandmother Bea, I thought she was the most beautiful thing ever. I was so happy that my brother found someone who was not only beautiful, but a pleasure to be around. In fact, I owned a dinghy around the time I met your grandmother. I adored her so much I named my boat, Lady Bea.”

The Power of Learning

Recently, I was lucky enough to spend time with my 85 year old great uncle, who greatly resembles my deceased grandfather. I always appreciate spending time with someone who has lived a full life and interacted with so many people important to me. Our most recent interaction reminded me of one of the things I loved most about my relationship with my Grandfather - listening to him tell stories. Storytelling is an important way for one generation to learn about the experiences of another. However, with different generations, there are inherently communication barriers. These barriers can be broken down in time and allow for much stronger communication.

The Power of Language

Having spent some time listening to my Uncle’s stories, it made me think about how much I also appreciate learning from other cultures. My fiancé’s family is Persian and in the six years since we starting dating, I have learned a lot about the Persian culture, as well as the Baha’i religion – mainly from listening to her family’s stories. Unfortunately, there is a big communication barrier as most of her family’s primary language is Farsi. Over time, I have been able to understand more of what they say because I can pick out certain words and can understand their body language but it is still difficult to fully understand a conversation if they primarily speak in their native language.

The Power of Language Learning

Unquestionably, the world would be a safer place if everyone were able to communicate better. While understanding every culture and knowing all languages is not possible, learning more languages and about other cultures are undoubtedly steps in the right direction. Learning a new language or understanding a different culture cannot happen overnight. It takes time, effort and complete respect for whatever you choose to learn.

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My story is quite simple. I plan to continue to learn as much as possible about the Persian culture and start to learn Farsi as well. I have asked my fiancé’s family to continue to tell me stories about when they were growing up and how they are dealing with the current situation in Iran. I have asked them to continue to speak Farsi in front of me. I plan on continuing to learn.

I’ve shared a couple of ways I love to learn, please feel free to share some of yours.

The winning Super Bowl Ad...

It's probably safe to say that the advertisement that everyone is still talking about after the Super Bowl didn't even air during the Super Bowl. In fact, there wasn't a traditional advertisement in this campaign. With that said, for me, it's quite simple; the Pepsi Refresh Project campaign was the best campaign launched around the Super Bowl and it isn't even close.

If you review the campaign, it all started in the middle of December; almost two months before the actual Super Bowl took place. There was a lot of press writing about how Pepsi was pulling all of its advertising budget from the Super Bowl.


ABC News  Wall Street Journal  Time Magazine

What I found interesting was that Pepsi was moving its typical Super Bowl advertising budget to social media. At the time, I didn't pay enough attention to what that meant. So when the Super Bowl was played, I noticed Pepsi's absence during the game and thought to myself, "I wonder what Pepsi is actually doing in the social media space." That triggered some research and in a few short minutes, I discovered Pepsi's campaign.

The Pepsi Refresh Project is a refreshing (no pun intended) take on Social Media, Cause Marketing and Crowd Sourcing. Giving consumers and companies the ability to win money to better humanity as well as giving consumers the chance to vote on which project wins is not only inspiring but a risk that most other companies would be too concerned to make. I commend Pepsi in taking this risk and believe that it did the right thing by moving its Super Bowl budget to a campaign that will live much longer than 1 or 2 Super Bowl ads.
With the Super Bowl over and the New Orleans Saints Champions, most of the commercials are forgotten. The Pepsi Refresh Project continues. It continues to garner buzz; it continues to reward consumers and companies who participate and it continues to inspire (Its Facebook Fan Page has over 600k fans).

In fact, a good friend of mine and I are working on submitting a project. I will write a blog specific on what our idea is and how you can help, but I want to focus this post on the project itself. If you have not read about it or looked at the website, I ask that you do. It will give you a new perspective on Pepsi and more importantly, the smart decision Pepsi made on pulling it's ad budget out of the Super Bowl. Lastly, it will hopefully inspire you to think of great ideas to submit.