TUF Recap

I used to write weekly recaps of The Ultimate Fighter reality show for BORN STRONGER. This is just one example.

If nothing else, this week’s episode of TUF will be remembered for setting two world records:

1.    The longest held triangle choke in MMA history

2.    The most amount of times the word “titties” was used in an hour-long show.

Anyway, six weeks in to season 10 of the Ultimate Fighter and Team Rampage STILL does not have a victory. What’s it going to take for this team to finally get in the win column? They better figure it out soon because after Darryl Schoonover put Zak Jensen to sleep with the afore mentioned triangle choke, there are only three fighters left for Rampage’s boys.

The show started out with Darryl opening up a beer and pouring himself a shot at 8am in the morning. Someone has to sit this guy down and tell him he’s not going to a Lynyrd Skynyrd concert. Thankfully, Rashad Evans and Co. performed an intervention of sorts after a less than stellar practice session. Good thing Darryl isn’t a mean drunk because Rampage later ran into him in the gym and started calling Darryl “Titties” again.

Read the rest of the post here.

How Can Van Halen Help Your Marketing Plan?

Check out this post I wrote a while back for swb&r. I always liked it.

In the annals of rock star divadom, Van Halen and David Lee Roth should have their own chapter. However, no story is as famous as their notorious request for a bowl full of M&M’s backstage…sans the brown ones.

Were Roth and Van Halen a bunch of whiney rock stars or smart operations experts? According to the latest Fast Company article by Dan & Chip Heath, it’s the latter.

The band performed hundreds of shows per year complete with pyrotechnics and, of course, some very loud music. According to the article, the technical requirements for each show were so complex that Van Halen’s standard contract was thick and convoluted. If the venue missed just one requirement it could ruin the whole show.

So Roth and company buried a special clause deep in the contract requiring a bowl full of M&M’s backstage, but with all the brown ones removed. Read the full post.

Why Is Business-to-Business Advertising So Awful?

I wrote this post for swb&r in April of 2010. I was always fond of it so I figured I’d share.

Recently, I was skimming through a leading trade publication dedicated to engineers and maintenance professionals in the construction industry. The publication is good. It has well-written editorials from industry professionals and valuable insights. However, the advertising was abysmal. All the ads looked the same. Most companies had no unique selling point and the headlines were only slightly more exciting than what you might read in the Yellow Pages. Sadly, this is the case with 99% of all B2B marketing.

So I did an experiment. (Read the rest here)

Why Do B2B Marketers Find Social Media So Scary?

This post was originally written for swb&r in April of 2010.

Quick, name a B2C social media success story.

When I ask that question I hear names like Dell, Ford, Comcast and Threadless before I’m even done asking the question

Now name a B2B social media success story.

When I ask THAT question I usually hear crickets.

That’s not to say there isn’t anyone in the B2B space successfully utilizing social media. Companies such as American Express, Cree and Archer have actually done very well in this new medium. But they are few and far between. So why are those in B2B marketing so slow to embrace social media?

Read the full post.

Business Writing Doesn’t Have to be Boring

I wrote this post for swb&r in early 2010. Read the full post here.

Here’s a fun little exercise.

Google the phrase “full-service solutions provider” and see how many results come up. Now search “cost effective end-to-end solutions” then give “provider of value-added services” a whirl.

Here’s a tally of the Google search results:

Full-service solutions provider: 47,000
Cost effective end-to-end solutions: 95,000
Provider of value-added services: 600,000

To put that in perspective, the “provider of value-added services” search result number is roughly the same size as the population of Boston.

Read the rest of the article here.

 

Crowdsourcing Comes With Dangers

I wrote this post about a month ago for swb&r.

For the past few years, crowdsourcing has been all the rage among marketers. It’s a great concept: Companies broadcast an open call to consumers to create advertising for the brand with the winner being awarded a robust cash-prize. It’s viewed as a way to keep costs down while engaging the consumer with the brand.

Brands such as Doritos, Pepsi, General Motors and Unilever have jumped on the bandwagon and the results have, admittedly, been effective.

However there are dangers. (Read the rest of the post here.)

What Oog and Ugg Can You Teach You About the Web

I wrote this post a couple of years ago for a woman who needed a few articles to boost her SEO rankings. I found it and kinda’ liked it so I reposted.

While I wasn’t there personally, I’m fairly certain the shopping habits of cavemen and cavewomen were as different back then as they are today.

Imagine this…caveman Oog shops for a new club and leaves the store ASAP as soon as his mission is accomplished. Meanwhile, cavewoman Ugg tries out a variety of different clubs, looking the one that goes perfectly with her favorite saber tooth tiger cloth. Is it small enough for her to manage? Is it proven as a self-defense weapon for a petite cavewomen like herself? Who else has bought one? Is there a guarantee? How much? And so on…

A lot has changed since the days of Oog and Ugg. Things like shopping malls, the Internet and even the wheel have drastically changed the way we shop. But, the shopping habits of men and women have not. Despite all the advances in today’s technology, we as humans are still hard-wired the same as we were in the days of Oog and Ugg.

Recent research suggests men are very task-oriented when they shop. In other words, they want to get in and get out.  As in the caveman days, males are single-focused. They had to be in order to be the hunters and providers. Getting distracted when they were on a life or death mission simply wouldn’t do.

Meanwhile today’s women want to interact. They want to talk to the sales associates. Try out different products. And do some research. Just like in the cavewoman days, females are multi-focused. They need to take in a lot of information to make the best decision for the tribe. This goes back to women being in charge of the community aspect of the tribe since they were in charge of raising the cavekids.

In today’s high-tech society, these differences in buying processes cannot be ignored. If your business sells product over the Web, it’s imperative your site is “woman friendly.” Consider:

• 63% of online shoppers are women
• Women control 75% of household finances and make 80-85% of purchasing decisions
• Women are now the dominant demographic online and off

Knowing what a woman wants online or offline goes a very long way toward improving your bottom line. Here are some suggestions to optimize your website for your female consumers:

• Provide detailed product descriptions
• Show pictures of the product (or people using your service if that’s what you sell)
• Consider adding an online chat room where women can get immediate feedback on their questions
• Add a Frequently Asked Questions segment for fast answers;
• Include the story of why you went into business (women relate well to personal stories)
• Contribute to a high-profile charity and mention it on the site
• Include testimonials with social proof of how your product has served others in the past

Making these changes doesn’t mean you should “busy up” your site. On the contrary, studies show women go online to save time and simplify their lives. Keeping your site user-friendly is extremely important.

So whether you’re marketing to Oog or Ugg, remember: Ugg wears the loincloth when it comes to purchasing decisions.

 

Confessions of an Arrogant Creative

Just stumbled upon this post. I have no recollection of why I wrote it or for whom it was written. But I liked it. So I reposted.

After graduating from ad school in 1999, I thought advertising agencies would be falling all over themselves trying to hire me and pay me great big gobs of cash. After all, I had a shiny new portfolio from the School of Visual Arts and was the next great creative superstar. Surely agencies were aching to hire me.

Oh, how wrong I was.

Apparently there were other people who were also looking for jobs and (insert horrified gasp here) were better and more prepared for the agency world than I was. Even during the great dot com boom, I found it hard to find a job that I deemed worthy of my enormous talent. Apparently an enormous ego and mediocre portfolio don’t impress agency creative directors nearly as much as I thought.

So I did what any naive 22-year old kid would do in that situation. I sulked and whined until an agency in Jersey called me in for an interview and gave me a shot.

Jersey. Can you believe it? After four long years of building my portfolio in Manhattan I was forced to live and work in the diner capital of the world. Worse yet, the agency I worked for never appeared in any of the award annuals. Not the One Show, not Communication Arts, nothing. I was embarrassed. And I was way too talented to be wasting my time at such a lowly agency.

Little did I know, my co-workers didn’t think I belonged there either. Not because I was more talented than them, but because I was a world-class jerk. Instead of being thankful that I had a job and was receiving a paycheck every two weeks, I strutted my enormous ego around the office, bad-mouthed the work the agency produced and sulked about my situation. The agency eventually let me go – and rightfully so.

For the next few years I bounced around a few little agencies in Jersey. And everywhere I went I brought an enormous chip with me and foolishly displayed it on my shoulder. It took me three long years to realize that hard work and humility are the keys to getting a job in advertising. No one is going to hire someone who thinks they are the second coming of David Ogilvy. You see, confidence is a lot like garlic. A little bit is fine. But, when you have too much of it, it stinks.

So if you’re fresh out of ad school and still pounding the pavement, it might help to take a few steps back and look in the mirror. If there is a chip on your shoulder, remove it.

People will see you differently and creative directors will start calling back.

Lost Season IV, Episode 1 Recap!

I wrote this post a few years back for Helium.com. I just found it and figured I’d share.

“We have to go back, Kate! We have to go baaaaaack!”

It’s been eight long months since a drunk and despondent Jack screamed those words at the end of the flash-forward Season III finale. But, what has happened to our favorite spinal surgeon/castaway? Why is he popping pain pills like candy, contemplating suicide and aching to get back to the island he risked his life to escape from? Most importantly, what is with the Jim Morrison beard?!?!?

We’ll find out in the coming weeks. And if last season’s finale was any indication of things to come, you better buckle up. It’s gonna’ be a wild ride.

If you like you’re Lost spoiler free stop reading here.

Last night’s much anticipated episode treated us to another look into a Lostie’s bleak future. It seems that since the rescue, Hurley has been seeing the ghost of Charlie who implores Hurley to go back and get “them”. A fact that has driven everyone’s favorite chicken shack owner back into the mental institution. Not that that’s a bad thing. On the contrary, Hurley seems to relish being in the safe confines of the Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute. But, who is “them” and why didn’t they make it off the island? After a brief OJ-like car chase through LA, Hurley tells police officers that he is one of the Oceanic Six. We know Jack and Kate also made if off the island, but who are the other three? (Al Cowlings perhaps?) Why didn’t the others make it?

Back on the island things aren’t going much better. Desmond has returned from his fateful trip to the bottom of the sea and has told his comrades that poor Charlie is fish food. The swimming Scotsman is also telling anyone who will listen the people on the freighter are not what they seem.

Jack and Locke are butting heads…again. This time they’re sparring over whether or not they should leave the island with the freighter people. Desmond, Sawyer, Hurley, Sayid, Claire and Ben agree with Locke and decide to hide out in the barracks to avoid the coming catastrophe. Meanwhile Kate, Juliet, Sun and Jin rally behind Jack and wait for rescue.

Will the rescuers turn out to be something more sinister? Will Jack and Locke’s two groups go all Lord of the Flies on us? Will Jack ever make it through an episode without crying?

Tune in next week to find out.

For Sparta!!!! (And a nice set of abs!)

After 300 came out a few years back much was made of the famous training regimen the actors went through to perfect their physiques for the camera.

The point is to complete the workout as fast as possible. By taking minimal breaks between sets you’ll add a cardio component into your strength-training workout. You do a total of six exercises and perform 50 repetitions for each one.

6 x 50 = 300. Get it?

However, much of the exercise routine can’t be done in ordinary home gyms. Here then is a modified 300 workout for all you fitness buffs.

(Read the post here)