Posts Tagged ‘branding’

While I was sitting and drinking my second cup of Portola Coffee today, reading email in Microsoft Outlook on my custom built HyperPC‘s computer, I began thinking about traveling and creativity. Being surrounded by the same things day in and day out can be frustrating…there is nothing new to inspire you. One of the simple ways I have found to fix this is head to my local Corner Bakery (great food and free wifi) to work. But, despite the visual changes, it isn’t enough. The more I talk with people who travel, the more I see creativity at work. But, since I rarely travel, I have never seen this creativity in action – never seen how traveling can change an outlook.

So I started looking for flights on TravelZoo and found a great Virgin America flight tomorrow to San Fransisco. I needed a couple days of creative motivation somewhere different. I booked my room at The Orchard Hotel and stared planning what I would pack – of course I would need my Sony Vaio laptop, my Blackberry Curve 8530 (with Verizon service of course!) and my small Tumi travel bag (I was only going for 2 nights) and my Coach laptop bag (which doubles as a purse). Despite not traveling a ton, I have always had a knack for packing, and was ready for the trip in just a couple hours. With packing done, I needed to plan what I wanted to do while I was there. I knew work would be no problem, since with Gotomypc, I would have full access to my home computer while working out of town (backed up online with Carbonite just in case, of course). But, I also wanted to get some serious creativity flowing…so I jumped on twitter and sent out some mentions that I was going to be in San Fransisco. Pretty soon, I had booked dinner at the SupperClub, gotten tickets to go see a play and plans to walk the Golden Gate Bridge and talk branding with the folks at Ghiradelli.

Okay, let’s get serious – does the above paragraph’s sound ridiculous to anyone else? I should seriously hope so! While this is a bit (only a tiny bit) of an exaggeration, more and more bloggers are turning out posts that read like this – a list of all the companies who give them free stuff to promote them. No content to benefit the readers, no lessons to learn, no thoughts to take away, no business/life/any kind of advice. Just garbage about their sponsors mixed in with some normal sentences so it doesn’t look so “obvious”.

These are bloggers that I read (well, used to read) and 6 months ago, had great content. Then, they start getting more popular, getting more sponsors and unfortunately, start spewing this drivel instead of real content. I understand why businesses target top bloggers to promote their products, and I am so happy for these bloggers because the sponsors mean the bloggers are getting popular. I want bloggers to succeed! I want businesses to succeed! I am perfectly happy to see advertisments all over the sidebars! What I don’t get is why bloggers feel like any of their readers want to read blog posts about the sponsored crap.

Would I love to get sponsored by everyone mentioned above, receive free product/stays/programs? Absolutely!!! If I did, would I write blog posts about them? Nope. Personally, any time I see a post that only really talks about where someone stayed/went/who they met with (all for free of course) it starts to make my skin crawl. I know why it was written, it was written to promote the company who the blogger is being sponsored by and that is that. There is no other reason. The posts read like bad advertising and make both the blogger and the advertiser look bad. Seriously people? If you want to promote a product, that is totally fine with me – put ads on your sidebar, but leave it out of the content. I’m tired of reading it.

Oh, and by the way, there are no links in this post, the companies are all in blue to prove a point. These are all great companies, in fact most of the companies/products/services mentioned, I do use (and love). But, I am not sponsored by any of them, I did not receive anything free from them, and in fact, other than 2 of the companies, these companies have no idea who I am.

Over the next 25 posts, ending on my birthday, I will be covering an incredibly creative moment or idea from a year of my life AND one creative moment in either the marketing, advertising, technology or media world.

Some of us need positive reinforcement, others only understand punishment. I only understand positive reinforcement. Luckily I learned this when I was just 3 ½. I started kindergarten in the middle of 1988. From the very beginning,  I was a handful. I liked to talk, and had a very active imagination. The rest of the story from today is as told to me by my father since it is one of his favorite stories…“Every day Kirsten’s teacher, Mrs. Gitlin, had a pond of water drawn on the board. In that pond were fishing poles for each student, and fish in the water with each students name on it. Above the fishing poles was a table and then a frying pan. Every time you did something wrong, you moved up the ranking, from the water, to the pole, to the table and to the frying pan…and by gum, you were in the fishing pan every day! Well, the problem was, you thought it was a prize…(apparently I thought I was winning every day??). So, we [my parents] came in and talked with the teacher and explained that you [Kirsten] needed positive, not negative reinforcement. Once she changed how she rewarded you – giving you stars when you did things right instead of punishing if you did them wrong – you became a stellar student and she never had problems with you again”. This lesson has stuck with me forever and I believe is one of the most important things I remember when working with clients. Some people need positive reinforcement, some negative (reminder emails for getting their things done vs congratulatory notes when they are done). Some people learn by listening, some by doing (sitting in workshops or hands on training). The overall point is that not everyone operates in the same manner, and the sooner we learn that, the more effectively we will work with each other.

In the marketing world, 1988 marked a turning point for U.S. advertising overseas. Prior to 1988, Soviet TV had never allowed any American advertisements, but on May 21st, 1988, Pepsi debut it’s commercial to over 150 million Soviet TV viewers. What was even more important was that Pepsi translated their logo into the Cyrillic alphabet so that the Russians would be able to understand the commercial and the logo. This was a turning point because after the opening of the Soviet Union to American commercials, many companies began researching changing their logos into more multi-cultural forms, and planned on how they would release their products into new markets (remember the disaster of the Chevy Nova in Hispanic cultures?). It is important now, more than ever, to remember that with channels like youtube, your commercials have basically no limit to the people (and the countries) that will view them.