'Public Relations' Archives

Advertising: No Longer
a Dirty Business

Street Advertising Services

Street Advertising Services: A greener, cleaner approach to guerrilla branding

“We wanted to apply a technique that was not just eye-catching and effective but also friendly to the environment. What could be more natural than water?”

—Kristian Jeffrey, SAS Founder

Profit from Filth

Street Advertising Services (SAS) of Britain offers a greener, cleaner approach to guerrilla branding. Using water, stencils and pressure washers, SAS cleans pavement in the dead of night, creating street art advertisements for companies like British Petroleum and K2r (see above).

Simple, direct and probably a great deal of fun on the installation side, it’s word-of-mouth (WOM) via foot. Remarkable.

[ via: dgirlp | Organic ]

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Google’s OpenSocial:
The Social Network Standard


Is Google’s OpenSocial the new
Microsoft Windows of Social Networking?

Campy but Good

Google announced the launch of OpenSocial—their set of standardized application programming interfaces (APIs)—at “Campfire One” last Thursday.

Thrilled Social Network developers attending the event laud the benefits in the highlight video above (4:15). See the full event here (57:23).

S’More of a Good Thing

And why not be happy? Those developers are now aligned with Google and Google’s next big thing, and they also join a growing list of prominent OpenSocial online networks and supporters with whom to collaborate, including:

Engage.com, Flixster, Friendster, hi5, Hyves, iLike, imeem, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ning, Oracle, orkut, Plaxo, Salesforce.com, Six Apart, Tianji, Viadeo, and XING.

Their combined reach equates to over 200 million subscribers.

Roasting Distribution

Most importantly, OpenSocial promises developers a way to optimize development costs through the creation of a common platform available (thus far) only to OpenSocial affiliates.

A single source development platform means more rapid distribution and greater reach since developers can now build one app for multiple social networks, eliminating the need to create multiple network-specific applications.

Passing on the Hot Dogs

Conspicuously missing from the list of Google OpenSocial faithful was social media darling, Facebook. Facebook passed up a $1 billion offer from Yahoo last year, then a week ago sold a 1.6% stake to Microsoft for $240 million, inflating Facebook’s value to an estimated $15 billion.

Google’s OpenSocial countermeasure is expected to significantly reduce that estimate.

If OpenSocial delivers as promised and becomes the global de facto standard for social network development, Facebook may one day need to face compliance just to remain relative and viable. Probably not what Microsoft or Facebook had in mind when they inked the deal late last month.

Branded Just Right

All of which bodes well for for brand marketers, advertisers, developers and users. OpenSocial’s standards and conventions should drive streamlined creation, processing, access and distribution of messaging, bringing deeper reach and measurably greater returns for marketers.

Of course, sometimes standardization translates to stifling and stale—we’ll see. But the commercial benefits of ubiquitous and proprietary standardization are hard to deny.

Just ask Microsoft.

Update. From Techcrunch: Facebook may already be talking to Google.

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Colts vs. Pats: Jim Irsay’s
Big Announcement

Football stadium

Colts owner Jim Irsay’s news this week had nothing to do with the upcoming Colts vs. Pats game. That didn’t stop us from a little Top 20 Tom Foolery.

Top 20 Guesses at what Jim Irsay’s announcement is, er, was…

Some Good News

Jim Irsay, owner of the Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts was slated to make an important announcement here in Indianapolis earlier this week. So we used the looming local news as an excuse to start a new Top 20 topic on our office white board.

Irsay has since divulged his secret but with the Indianapolis Colts and the New England Patriots squaring off this weekend in what’s being touted as an early Super Bowl, we’ve continued to hypothesize, surmise and add to our list.

And with that, here’s 10 of our favorites from the board.

Top 20 Guesses at what Jim Irsay’s big announcement is…

  1. He’s struck oil
  2. Free oil changes for season ticket holders
  3. Who knows, it’s all just Irsay
  4. He is a patriot
  5. Probably something charitable and scavenger hunt oriented
  6. He’s Manning the helm
  7. A new Colts jimnasium
  8. He’s skeered of the Pats
  9. His next acquisition: George Steinbrenner
  10. He won’t let Moss grow on our rolling stone
  11. See the rest here.

    Incoming additions:

  12. Issuing a reward for fans who catch the Pats cheating this Sunday.
  13. He’s so confident he’s spotting the Pats 10 points
  14. I live in Brown’s country, and no one here knows about the Colts, Irsay, or the Patriots. We are just fortunate to have a full team on the field at any given time.

Got an entry of your own?

Leave a comment and we’ll add them to the list above up until game time on Sunday (4:15 pm, EST).

Because? It’s a Good Cause

Yes, we’re a little off-topic here but as Mr. Irsay’s news reveals, it’s for a good cause and hey, there’s a Super Bowl ring at stake here. That’s our brand rationale and we’re sticking to it. But thanks (particularly to our overseas readers) for indulging us all the same.

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A Way In

A thought about modern day brand and market reach from David Meerman Scott (paraphrased):

Old Rules: Buy your way in with advertising, or beg your way in with PR.

New Rules: Publish your way in with content.

[via: Todd Defren ]

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Jewelry with a Purpose

Beads

Beautiful Jewelry.
Right Out of a Magazine.
Literally.

Meticulously crafted by HIV-positive Kenyan’s in Imani Workshops, the beads in this necklace are made of tightly wound strips of recycled magazines. Because of its beautiful, brilliant colors, the periodical of choice for the beads is Oprah’s “O” Magazine.

Often, the stigma of HIV precludes employment, and therefore income; however, as part of an overall program of nutrition, support and treatment provided by the Indiana University School of Medicine and the IU-Kenya Partnership, the creation and sale of these beads provides income and hope to those afflicted with HIV/AIDS.

Old magazines giving sick people hope and a new chance at life.

Wouldn’t Oprah be proud?

Image: Illig

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