It’s the start of the football season in the U.S, and that means millions of viewers watching the games in their own home. Which translates to millions of eyeballs watching television ads during the game. In short, NFL mid-game adverts are big-buck affairs.

Automakers know that, and have saved some of their best work for football fans.

Tonight, Nissan’s advertising campaign changes gear with its latest commercial for the 2011 Nissan Leaf.  But instead of world-renowned cyclist Lance Armstrong waxing lyrical on his feelings for Nissan’s all-electric car, this ad leaves the talking to a polar bear.

Yes, Nissan has finally pulled the eco-warrior card.

In the one minute advert, a solitary polar bear leaves its rapidly melting home and starts a journey from northern wilderness to suburbia, seeking shelter and sustenance along the way.

You’d be forgiven for thinking the advert was from Greenpeace, warning the viewer that human actions and global warming are killing rare and beautiful species, as our screens are filled with melting ice-caps, forlorn cries and large trucks.

But the sad and forlorn journey of the polar bear in the advert doesn’t end in death and destruction. It ends with a car.

The final scene shows a 2011 Nissan Leaf driver leave his home and walk towards his car to start the morning commute.  With a non-violent roar, the Bear appears from behind the Leaf, giving the startled driver a bear hug.

The tagline “Innovation for the planet, Innovation for all” rings out at the very end of the advert as the hugging bear and man fade to black.

No mention of price, no mention of specification and no mention of the competition certainly puts this advert firmly in the less-is-more camp. Combined with a heavy Facebook presence and captive audience during tonight’s first game we think the advert will certainly get attention.

But during the ad-breaks for the Vikings and Saints game tonight, will viewers really expect, or accept an advert which pulls the guilt card, especially when car adverts are traditionally a little less bleeding-heart and much more testosterone filled?

We’ll just have to wait and see. In the meantime, if you want to see the advert for yourself, play the video below.

So you’re at a baseball game or the park and you want to ensure that when you return you’ll still have your coveted seat…the answer is simple. Just throw one of these guys in your derrière place and you’ll find the seat still available upon return from the loo or your run to the ice cream truck.

Some faces and personalities just stick with you, here are 9 that most of us will be bringing to our graves.

Geiko amazingly has two

Mr Whipple from please don’t squeeze the Charmen

The Marlboro Man

The Maytag repairman

The “Where’s the Beef” Lady

The Life cereal’s “Mikey like it” kid

Ernest P, the “Where’s Vern” guy

This just shows you need personality and smarts to put a good ad together. If you are lucky enough to find it, the ripple can go on forever.

While the concept of personal branding has taken off corporate branding seems to go in and out of favor. Economic cycles may have a lot to do with that. With the growth of the Internet and social technology tools, personal branding activity and opportunities have exploded. On the other hand, in some ways, the arc of Web 1.0 to 2.0+ (not to mention this current economy) has seduced many marketers into being focused on tactics at the expense of strategy including branding. Hot media tactics often substitute for the “strategy.”

If you are skeptical that brands still matter in the age of 1-1, millennials and social media, or if you are trying to run a business and make numbers and don’t have the patience for brand consultant-speak or theories, here is a quick, simple refresher on good old fashioned branding that works today, that can help you frame your marketing and other operational tactics…to drive business results.

Your business enterprise and marketing programs will be more successful if they are guided by a cohesive strategy that meets the B.R.A.N.D. criteria.

Your brand strategy must be:

B–Believable (about Belief & Behavior too)

Your brand positioning must be credible both with your customers and employees. Would a Volvo strategy around the idea of “sporty” be believable? (they seem to own “safety” for life). In addition, your organization’s belief in a brand vision and values and execution on that is critical. Many marketers and even some of my clients all too often equate the brand strategy with a logo. The brand is so much bigger. The brand strategy is about what your business stands for. It needs to be championed by the CEO, internalized by all employees and behaved and delivered, employee-to-employee, employee-to-customer. Just ask Zappos. And building this brand foundation internally has to take place before an external launch (ads, trade shows, Web site, social media…), otherwise you risk doing more harm to the brand (if your company is not prepared deliver on its promise).

R–Relevant

You and your colleagues need to be close enough to your customers to develop products and services that truly meet their needs including interacting with them in a meaningful way, through the most relevant media. (see “Nuts About Southwest” blog)

A–Adaptable

While your brand strategy should be relevant for today and specific markets, it also needs to be flexible, broad and viable over the long haul. GE’s “trust in good things” (1970s-80s) and “imagination & innovation” (this decade) brand positionings are enduring platforms from which diverse, effective concepts, campaigns and media strategies develop.

N–Numerically based

How you arrive at the brand strategy as well as measure your business’ alignment with it and marketing effectiveness must be based on objective data and customer and market inputs versus gut. In addition, your brand opportunity should map to business objectives such as market share and profits (numbers!). If a niche positioning results in being a second tier player it is likely not viable.

D–Differentiated

One of the toughest challenges is to create a brand strategy that is unique. Solutions? Quality? Laundry list of commodity features?. Zzzzzzzz. Apple’s brand positioning around playful, innovative simplicity has not been duplicated and is seamlessly expressed across media too numerous to name.

So even if you think the B-word is a bad word, and the SM-word (Social Media) is a good word, you might agree that tying your SM programs to an organizing principle, anchoring tactics in an underlying organizational and market strategy (or B-R-A-N-D strategy) is a good thing.?

Reference: Brand Planning

Writing and designing a successful advertisements can be a very challenging task, especially for entrepreneurs who don’t have the luxury of an internal marketing department or the budget to hire an expensive advertising agency.    It’s easy to become overwhelmed by the number of factors involved, so when designing an ad we like to begin by asking ourselves some preliminary questions before beginning on an ad design.  We like to write down our answers to these questions and continuously refer back to them as we design our advertisement.

* 1.  What is the goal of your message?

Why are you advertising?  Are you looking for to generate readers for your new blog?  Are you looking for customers to fill orders for a particular product?  What action do you want the customer to take after reading the message?

* 2.  Who is your audience?

Who is your message targeted towards?  Knowing who your message is intended for will help you design your advertisement.  Be aware of the different buyer personas in your target market.

* 3.  What does the audience want?

Knowing your audience and what they want is essential to writing a successful advertisement.  Your goal is to connect with your customer on a personal level — make them think that the ad was written specifically with them in mind.  The more personalized the message, the better your results will be.

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Once we have answered those questions, we have a foundation for the design and copy of our advertisement.  Checking back with these original questions as we develop the ad will ensure that we are talking to our audience and driving towards the goal of our message at all times.

Building on the foundation, we will begin to think about what kind of language we want to use in our ad.  We know that we need to speak on a personal level to our target audience and to do our best to tailor our advertisement specifically for each reader, but there is more to it than that.  It is important that we keep the following things in mind when writing our advertisement copy:

* Grab Attention – This is the most important factor of any advertisement.  If it doesn’t grab the attention of your reader, it will never be read in the first place.  Keep this in mind at all times.
* Use A Call To Action – Tell your customers what they must do to get your product.  Do they have to click on something?  Ask them to click the link.  Do they call a number?  Ask them to call the number.
* Create A Sense of Urgency – Offer some sort of incentive (real or perceived) for the customer to act immediately.  Customers may intend to come back, but without incentive to act immediately they may procrastinate and will never return, despite their intentions.
* Clearly Make Your  Offer – Your offer is the reason you are advertising and it’s also the reason that customers will respond to your ads.  Make your offer as clear and strong as it can possibly because the response to your ad will depend on the quality and clarity of your offer.  If your offer is not clear, you may get unwanted responses that will only waste your time and advertising budget.
* Appeal to Emotion – Neuroscience has proven to us that humans depend on emotions to make decisions.  Attempt to influence the emotions of your reader using stories, pictures and anything you can dramatize to draw the customer in.   The popularity of  “reality TV” is a great example demonstrating how powerful this simple principal is.
* Appeal to Self Interest – The only thing your customer is concerned with is themselves.  Focus on how your product or service directly benefits them, they don’t care about anything else.  Demonstrate as clearly as possible how your product or service benefits the customer.

It is often beneficial to come up with several similar but slightly different versions of your ad copy for the purposes of testing.  The idea is to run all of the ads and then look back at the results to see which ads had the best response rate.  Keep the ads with the best response rate and remove the rest.  The more times you repeat this process, the more effective your advertisements become.

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After you have established a foundation for your advertisement and have decided upon a few versions (or one version) of ad copy, you can begin to think about the visual appeal of the advertisement.  Advertisements consisting of images and multimedia are more likely to grab the attention of the reader in most cases, so we definitely want to use some visual elements and avoid using text-only ads — unless of course our target market wants to see only text.  Keep the following considerations in mind when designing the visual elements of your ad:

* Don’t try to cram too much into a small space – leaving some white space may actually guide your reader to the important information.  Don’t overwhelm them with too much noise.
* Users will notice visuals first – before a reader bothers to read your copy, they will glance at your visuals and instantly decide whether or not to read.  Keep this in mind.
* Put important information where the user will expect it – don’t put anything important in the fine print.  Make it easy for the user to read the ad and instantly understand what the offer is and how to get it.
* Stay consistent in your layout and design elements – keep your visual elements consistent, including colors, borders, graphics  and fonts.
* Draw a border – in most cases you should make sure that there is a clear line between the beginning  and end of your advertisement.
* Include your logo – Always include your logo to improve the visibility of your brand.  The more customers see your brand, the more trust they will place in it.  Building a brand will be crucial to your success, so you should be constantly engaged in it.

After designing the visual elements of your ad, you should check back to the original 3 questions and ensure that you are still communicating your intended message to your intended audience in the way that they want to receive it.  Making sure that you optimize each element of the ad will contribute greatly to its eventual success.

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You should have a pretty good framework for creating an advertisement design at this point, but there are still a few things we think you should watch out for.  These are things we strongly recommend avoiding:

AVOID:

* All capital letters in ad copy – this gives the appearance of  “shouting.”  It’s a common misconception that this is a good way to grab attention.   Readers may glance over small letters and derive full meaning from the text, whereas they are not conditioned to do so with all capital letters.
* Offering too many choices – offering too many choices can paralyze your user and cause them to not act when they would have otherwise acted on your offer.  Choice can be good, but be careful when offering choices in any advertised offer.
* Talking about yourself  or your company – don’t talk about yourself or your company too much in your advertising — the customer cares only about helping themselves.  Don’t describe your company — describe your offer.
* Misleading ads – do not mislead your customer in any way.  This may get them interested in your ad, but the last thing any advertising budget needs is customers who are interested in the ads but not in the products.  Obviously it will also negatively impact your credibility.
* Rushing to print – don’t rush to get your advertisement to print.  Take your time to thoroughly  and carefully create a quality advertisement.

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After you’ve finished your ad design, there is one more thing you might want to ask yourself one last question.

Can I simplify this at all?

Is there anything you can do to make the ad more simple?  The better you can simplify your ad, the better response it will get.

Here is a side by side view of the full evolution of the Coke bottle

Have you ever wondered why a bunch guys on Steroids fake wrestling has done so well for so long as a business? Well I have, I get when your a kid it’s exciting, but if you watch the events you will see lots of adults going wild for their favorite meat head. In fact wrestling makes more money then boxing and UFC fighting combined currently.

With a little research and personal knowledge I put together a list of ten reasons wrestling does so well and what any business can learn from them.

1. Spectacle, drama, excitement.

This one is just shortly missed by it’s competitors boxing and UFC. The fact is with any business most people want some spectacle to show the company is real and aggressive. More importantly this needs to be done without the business as a whole losing it’s integrity. For example a shipping company could have a video that’s a little risque just create a little buzz and spectacle. It’s doesn’t have to be relevant but the age old tale that SEX SALES is as true now as ever. The reason is the spectacle, drama, and excitement behind it. Being a little risque or adventurous shows your customers that you are not afraid to take chances.

Solution: Spend more money and time on viral buzz creating media, no matter what company you are part of.

2. Humor and Charisma

People need to know who they are dealing with. If you have no personal identity within your company your business will suffer in the 2.0 phase of business. Transparency and personal connection is 100 times more important now then ever before. For example Barack Obama was substantially more transparent in his life and works through his entire campaign. Add that and a great candidate and you have a landslide.

Solution: Create a spokesperson or spokes-character and give him lots of humor and charisma. Or if you have a Charismatic President or CEO get him out of the office and in front of the media ASAP.

3. Create an ongoing pursuit

Wrestling is famous for it’s incorporation of what’s to come. Every match and every situation is a lead into something BIG that is coming. There is a sort of genius in how they keep this run on adventure going for it’s fans year after year.

Solution: Create a mission that is followable and has points and goals along the way. For example DWHS Website Hosting has a mantra that they are in the pursuit for the most advanced web hosting service available. If you follow their blog and forum you will see the new technology they are adding and upgrading in this constant path.

4. Props are temporally

You can have a huge promo with the most ingenious theme and have it do great. For example; a shipping company can have a soap box race but all cars must be made of recycled cardboard, other then the wheels I suppose. This probably would do great… ONCE maybe twice.  Wrestling is always coming up with new event themes so the fan doesn’t get board. One week might be a haystack match, then next a dark cage brawl, and so on.

Solution: Keep your events new, try not to recycle old promos.

5. People need to talk about you

The fans of Wrestling love to give their opinions on what might be coming, who they like, and why they like them. In business if your customers are not talking about you then you are missing out on the best marketing tool in the world and it’s free! Word to mouth has been wrestling’s main source of marketing and they know this. To keep this going they create drama and topics that can be talked about easily, judged, and taken differently for the sake of their community stirring up buzz.

Solution: Be a part of things that people talk about. This might require joining a local event or organization. Your business needs to be part of something that is a hot topic!

6. Make your customer part of the show

Most people know that wrestling is fake, yet the fans and new on-goers come to the show again and again. Research shows that this is because they feel that they are part of the process. The fans cheering is just as much part of the show as the wrestlers.

Solution: Include your image with your customers as part of why your company is great. Compliment and showcase why you have the greatest customers and why you are all connected.

7. Do focus groups

Focus groups are more important now then ever before. Vince McMahon said he doesn’t need focus groups because he has them several nights a week in his arena. If you are not so lucky to have a live show interacting with your customers and your business then you need focus groups to see where the market is at and what to target.

Solution: Find local specialists and have them conduct a focus group on your product. This will give you more insight then you would ever think.

8. Listen to your audience

Your audience is fickle and sometimes to mean and sometimes too nice, this is why focus groups are so good they get the raw nonobjective data you need. But for now listen to your customers and keep track of what they want and don’t want!

Solution: Add a survey and comments section to your website, send out a how are we doing card to each customer so you can get feedback.

9. Keep all markets in mind (to some extent)

Wrestling caters to young and middle aged men and always have. But they have also always added in to every show something for every demographic to identify with. Women and older people are joining into the wrestling mecca more and more thanks to smart marketing.

Solution: Target your focus market but keep everyone in mind with other marketing angles time to time.

10. Be open to new business models, even if it means changing everything.

Wrestling has re-invented itself too many times to list, creating new leagues, styles, and marketing strategies. With the experience it has with failing, wrestling has learned how to survive stronger and smarter then ever. it has never been afraid to take a chance and still to this day constantly pushes for new business models. With smart listening and analyzing wrestling has because a staple in America and stored tightly in most young boys subconscious next to adventure and perseverance..

Final Solution: Never get comfortable, and forget the saying if it’s not broke don’t fix it. Business 2.0 is about evolving and staying on top of your marklet in a way that is transparent, clever, humerus, and strong. You need to be more honest and open with your business then ever before. In turn you will get free word to mouth buzz and real feedback that will help decide the next move for your company and / or the next business you need to start.

Please leave feedback and comments here

From the 1950s until the early 2000s, advertising and marketing followed along the path of the industrial revolution. Mass marketing followed mass production. Bigger supermarkets beat tiny markets. Chain restaurants replaced cafes. But the thing is, people’s tastes seem to be changing. We don’t enjoy the same beer anymore, an all-American Budweiser, like everyone else does. Instead, we like what the place down the street makes. It tastes better, it’s local, and there’s something cool about being able to talk to the guy who brewed it. And that does not just apply to beer, it applies to everything.

Report after report is coming out in favor of mass customization, the ability to “skin” products, to design them with us in mind. We want our own mark on everything. And with this desire for personalization in our product selection, our taste for mass communications is shifting back to a desire for more personal interactions.

Now that email overload has crushed us, long after fax marketing came and went, with mainstream newspaper and magazine advertising in decline, and with television ads being deleted by digital video recorders, new methods are being tested all the time. Social media is one of these methods, and its intimacy is hitting a core group of people. They’re sick of being pandered to, so they’ve stepped out of that line because the product at the end isn’t interesting to them anymore. But it turns out they do love something else: the ability to connect with new people, share real experiences, and work toward a common goal, the same human interests that have meant a lot to us throughout human history.

We talked earlier about how the Web creates democracy, and it’s important to think again about this as it relates to scale. The Web allows us to work within Dunbar’s number. It means that we can build business relationships in different ways: Instead of just locally or in a specific vertical, we can channel and stripe and slice in many different ways.

It is vital to understand, though, that this medium has limits. There’s a risk once you start thinking about mechanizing your online presence. Think of the difference between writing a personal message (in email or on paper) and sending out an e-mail newsletter. The language changes. The personality changes. It shifts to what we’re all trying to avoid.

To that end, think hard when planning. Think about this whole Build an Army concept with intention. This isn’t about capturing the “most.” It’s the difference between passionate home-brewed beer aficinados and mass-produced mainstream beer. You’re angling for the former, not the latter. Some quick advice on this front: If you scale, be sure to keep these details in mind:

* Simple gestures matter. Saying a few words back to everyone you can touch in a given hour is a nice way for people to feel heard and seen.
* Remember to visit other people’s sites, to participate in other people’s things, and to make the conversation about them.
* Give as much as you can to your loyal community. Empower people within it to lead in their own ways. Promote people within your community to help them feel part of the core experience.