Food Fight!

The Trix rabbit, Count Chocula, The Cute Penguin on the kid cuisine box, and of course Chuck-E- Cheese. Those were my favorite foods as a kid for obvious reasons. They had cool cartoons, usually had prizes, and in the portions that I ate, were not all that good for me. What more would a young kid ask for?

The ad world has been told for years to be careful how they market to children but in the past year, the reigns have been pulled tight. The Better Business Bureau's Children's Food and Beverage Advertising Initiative said it would enforce the same nutritional standards for all 17 of its voluntary members. The standards are becoming to tight that its predicted by Late 2013 one in three products now advertised to kids would be off the air, unless the recipes are drastically changed to have less soduim, saturated fat, and of course the devil  Sugar (seriously I read it in Skinny Bitch, Sugar is the Devil)! 

The new rules are meant to thwart a stronger proposal by the Obama administration that advertisers say would pretty much shut down kid-oriented ads for most foods.

This comes almost a year after a study conducted by the American Psychological Association. “Federal regulators should restrict television advertising aimed at children 8 and younger because research shows youngsters lack the skills to question a commercial's claims as anything but fact, the American Psychological Association said this past September. 

The association said extensive studies found that young children are unable to comprehend televised advertising messages and, as a result, is likely to consider commercials as "truthful, accurate and unbiased. This can lead to unhealthy eating habits as evidenced by today's youth obesity epidemic," the group said in a news release. The association said that advertisers spend more than $12 billion a year on messages aimed at the youth market, including children over 8. The average child -- no matter what age -- watches more than 40,000 television commercials a year, it added.”

Could this be the end of all my favorite food cartoons? I guess only time will tell.

Yes, that is Kiernan Shipka, AKA, Sally Draper, in a Trix Commercial, what a fitting picture for this post!

Would you like fries with your billboard?

Doesn't it usually work out that the original is always better than the copy cats? Well, when you take two great originals and incorporate cutting edge advertising techniques. you have a billboard that makes me want to hop a plane to Sweden.

McDonald’s recently launched an interactive video billboard campaign in Sweden that lets users play a digital version of the very first video game, Pong.

Winners receive free food at a nearby McDonald’s restaurant. Finally a video game with a prize other than your name as the high scorer!

According to Mashable, "The system’s designers wanted to make it as easy as possible to begin playing, requiring users to simply enter a URL in their mobile phone’s browser. As soon as the smartphone’s geolocation confirms the player is in the area, the game begins, with the player controlling the billboard’s Pong game with the smartphone’s touchscreen."

Do you think augmented reality is the next logical step in the marketing mix or just a fad that will be gone faster than you can say pogs?

Business Blogging Tips

The most random things have been making me think of Mad Men lately. Today I was trying to come up with topic of discussion for the company LinkedIn and all I could think of was how I wish SCDP had a blog.

People tend to flock to Mashable and Hubspot when they are trying to gather information on news in the Marketing industry and I think if blogging had existed in the 60's Madison Avenue we would be like a moth to their proverbially flame. 

So enjoy my tips for successful business blogging, use them well, if you have any tips that you tend to follow leave them as a comment!

First of all, make sure that your blog is easy to find, and that your readers are able to easily comment and share posts with others. If no one can find your blog the following tips won’t matter!

Don’t use your blog as a press center. 

Using a recent press release in place of a new blog post may seem like a simple solution to saving some time but people who read blogs regularly are looking for a more casual voice. A blog is a good place to talk to your customers, not at them. A good idea for a business blog is to share details of the day-to-day work life and inner workings of your company. Tips and list are also often highly viewed post.

Blog Regularly.

If you think finding time to blog is going to be a problem, brain storm blog ideas for the whole month or year during a set time with co-workers. One of the reasons many blogs don’t get high views is because they post everyday for a week and then not again for a year (well not always exactly that way, but you get the idea!). Readers want current content.

Have low expectations.

Many companies think a blog will give them instant SEO and hundreds of readers daily. Not to discourage you, but this is not often the case. Mashable suggest that you give your blog at least a year of regularly putting out quality, original content before you start having faithful followers. 

(Blogger in training)

Is Social Media ruining your company’s productivity? If not, there’s a good chance in the future it will.

How many times during the work day do you check your social media presence? Because people don’t disconnect from an online chat quickly enough, get sidetracked by full email inboxes, and the worst distraction of all: Facebook, companies are hemorrhaging money. People are falling into the black hole I lovingly refer to as the Facebook Coma.

According to a recent survey by harmon.ie, the overload of new pictures, relationship statuses and of course the newsfeeds of all 2,000 of our closest friends is costing an average of $10,375 in productivity each year(per employee).

Between drinking, smoking, and flirting with secretaries- would there even be time in Don's day to get paid to tweet?

In a recent blog post titled “The Twitter Trap,” Bill Keller, the executive editor of The New York Times, writes about the challenges of staying focused. “The most obvious drawback of social media is that they are aggressive distractions.”

Do you think your one of the average workers who is basically paid thousands of dollars to keep up-to-date on your social networks?

In the 90’s being able to constantly monitor our friends and family via the World Wide Web seemed like the plot to a sci-fi movie, but today the range of content individuals have access to could literally bury us alive.

According to a recent blog post from Cisco Systems, we’re barely at the tip of this revolutionary iceberg. “In 2010, there were 12.5 billion devices connected to the Internet. Looking to the future, Cisco predicts there will be 25 billion devices connected to the Internet by 2015, and 50 billion by 2020. Both the types of information we share will dramatically increase, and the number of people from whom we can receive.”

Mashable predicts that the social networks and web companies that remember Cisco’s predictions will stand the best chance of success in the future. Well, to paraphrase Kate Winslet, “I’ll never let go of my Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare, or Blogger accounts Jack!”

What do you think of the recent upgrades to the most popular social media sites? (Twitter searching by pictures, Facebooks new pages) Is there a social networking platform that you don’t think you could live without?

Sorry for the delay

I haven't posted in a while, as you can all see. But with good reason: I was working full time while still holding down part time internships, writing freelance, getting into Grad School, babysitting, and finishing up my final semester as an undergrad!

I know, excuses excuses, but I've finally settled into a rhythm that will allow me to get back into blogging. Just in time too because there’s so much Mad news I'd like to share with you.

Unfortunately season 5 is being delayed until March of 2012. Of course waiting an extra 8ish months than we should have to is awful, but with all the cancellations happening lately I'm at least glad to have a wait.

The show’s creator Mathew Weiner said "Don was not good on his own. That's part of why he proposed to Megan." I don't know about anyone else but I'm hoping this will lead to a Betty/Don reunion. If January Jones pregnancy is worked into the show it could help in either direction. If she is pregnant with Henry's baby will it help her realize what a mistake she made? Or it could bring them together.

But I'm leaning more towards a secret affair between engaged Don and married Betty (talk about irony!) which will lead to Draper baby #4.

But since the season has been postponed so far maybe January's pregnancy won't even be a factor. The actress (who hasn't had any strange cravings as of yet might I add) is due in the fall so maybe we won't get to see as much of her pregnancy as we would have.

What do you think of the potential for drama the late start date and the pregnancy create?