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#MarketingTitbits – Obama, Growth Vouchers, DHL

ferns-vouchers-DHL-smaller1. Obama goes between two ferns with Zach Galifiankis
‘Between Two Ferns’, with Zach Galifiankis, is a series of videos shown on the Funny or Die website. In each episode he conducts an interview with a celebrity between two potted ferns. His typical interview style consists of normal interview questions, random non sequiturs and some inappropriate comments and questions.

Celebrities such as Justin Bieber, Jennifer Anniston and Bradley Cooper have gone between two ferns in the past but the most recent celebrity to do so was Barack Obama. Some of the topics the pair cover include Dennis Rodman, same-sex divorce and the Affordable Care Act. To watch the video, click here. 

 

2. Growth Vouchers: month one results

This time last year, George Osborne first announced Growth Vouchers. The drive behind them is to help SMEs access the advice they need to help them grow. The businesses that participate are allocated a voucher up to the value of £2,000, matched with their own funds, to spend on advice and guidance from industry experts.

The vouchers were launched at the end of January and so far, nearly 1,500 businesses have applied, with nearly 600 vouchers allocated (over £1 million). Nearly 50% of the vouchers issued so far have been for advice in marketing, attracting and keeping customers. If you have not applied yet, it is still not too late. To read more, click here.

3. DHL’s brilliant ad

DHL claim that in many countries the company has more offices, more vehicles and more employees than there competition, which is why they are faster. To illustrate this, they came up with a brilliantly conceived guerrilla marketing campaign to get their competitors advertise for them.

To do this, large DHL packages were covered in thermo-active foil and cooled down below the freezing point, allowing the plastic wrappers to turn black. They then asked for the competitors to deliver the packages to hard-to-get-to addresses in big cities. As the plastic warmed up the message from DHL became clear… to watch for yourself, click here.

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#MarketingTitbits – Top 10 Nike adverts, Pot Noddle advert banned and obsolete words that should have never gone out of style!

1. Top 10 Nike ‘Just do it’ advertsFounded in 1964, the American multinational corporation, Nike, is now one of the world’s largest suppliers of sports clothing and accessories. Nike aired its very first television advert in 1982 and since then has been the only company to win Cannes Advertising Festival’s Advertiser of the Year award twice, in 1994 and 2003. Nike has also won the Emmy Award for Best Commercial twice since the award was first created in the 1990s.

This year Nike is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its iconic strapline “Just Do It” and we’ve found a great article in Marketing Week, showcasing the top 10 adverts from Nike.

2. Pot Noodle advert banned for being ‘Crass and degrading’

Last week, we came across this article about an advert from Pot Noodle that has been banned by the Advertising Standards Authority for being ‘crass and degrading’. Now Pot Noddle is not known for the highbrow humour in its advertising, so we were intrigued to see what they had done to cross the line. The advert in question shows a picture of a bikini-clad model being compared to a spicy flavour of Pot Noodle with the question “which one gets you hotter?” The ASA decided that the ‘blatant’ comparison between a girl posing in a ‘provocative’ way and a Pot Noodle was likely to cause ‘serious offence’ to some viewers.

Several complaints about two other Facebook adverts from Pot Noodle were rejected, one of them with the strapline “peel a top off a hottie”. To take a look click here.

3. 18 obsolete words that should not have gone out of style

Have you ever noticed someone groaking at you? Do you know anyone that’s a bit beef-witted? Is your wife with squirrel? Have you got any idea what we’re going on about?

The English language has been evolving since 450AD when what we now call Old English came into use. Since then, Middle English, Early Modern English and Late Modern English have been spoken. With each new faze, new words have come into being, whilst old words become forgotten about.

Some of the words we use today are thousands of years old, for example, historians expect that words such as “I” and “we” have been used since the Stone Age. This week we found an interesting article from Business Insider about obsolete words that they think shouldn’t have gone out of style, to have a look click here.

 

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#MarketingTitbits – Jelly, Lucozade, emails

jelly-lucozade-emails-smaller1. Ben and Jerry’s marijuana tweet
The first of January marked not only the beginning of a new year but also the legalisation of recreational marijuana in Colorado. The state is now the first place in the world to allow stores to sell cannabis to anyone over the age of 21.

Unsurprisingly, this is not something that most brands consider to be a great real-time marketing opportunity. Despite this, it seems Ben and Jerry’s are one of the few, if not the only, major brand to capitalise on the news.

True, Ben and Jerry’s have never been a company to shy away from controversial issues – last year they celebrated the legalisation of same sex marriage by changing the name of their “Oh! My! Apple Pie!” ice cream to “Apple-y Ever After” and decorated the tubs with a gay couple on a wedding cake adorned with rainbows. They tweeted on January 2nd “BREAKING NEWS: We’re hearing reports of stores selling out of Ben & Jerry’s in Colorado. What’s up with that?” The humorous mention of Colorado’s change in law prompted over 9,500 retweets and nearly 6,000 favourites.

To read more, click here. 

 

2. 15 quotes to inspire you to greatness in 2014

Forget resolutions, here are 15 quotes to inspire you to greatness in 2014.

Here are two of our favourites:

“The best way to predict the future is to invent it.” – Alan Kay

“If I had six hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first four hours sharpening the axe.” – Abraham Lincoln

To read all 15 and find out what each one means for you, click here. 

 

3. Why social media in 2013 was all about image and why your business should take notice

In 2013, visual social media was on the rise. Vine, Pinterest and Instagram became three of the most popular social networking apps, and that’s not even mentioning the use of Snapchat and Instavid. The power of the image will undoubtedly continue in 2014, so make sure you think about this when considering your social media content this year. After all, when you only have 140 characters, having an image speak a thousand words is invaluable!

To have a look at why social media became visual last year and how you can apply this to your business, click here.

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Kindle takes on iPad

Style over substance?
Despite all the hype, is the iPad the perfect example of style over substance? Designed to be portable and accessed on the go, anywhere, the iPad has one significant flaw, you can’t read it in sunlight. Amazon has seized on this weakness in its latest series of adverts to promote its considerably cheaper Kindle, to try and capture valuable market share in the e-reader market. What do you think about the advert?

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