Peel n' Taste

First Flavor Inc. of Bala Cynwyd and US Ink, a Carlstadt, NJ–based company that provides ink for the newspaper industry, recently launched “Taste-it Notes” – newspaper front-page sticky notes that double as flavor strips. Now you can smell and taste a food or beverage product in your morning newspaper!

So far, flavor strips have been used in national campaigns for Welch Foods, Arm & Hammer, SKYY Vodka and Campbell’s Soup. In addition to newspapers, the ads have appeared in People and Rolling Stone magazines.

The Philadelphia Business Journal reports that Taste-it Notes are being billed as “a new way for struggling newspapers to build up ad revenue. … This delivery leverages the power of print advertising and brings an interactive experience that is not possible with online, television or radio ads.”

Now I’m not sure if Taste-it Notes will revitalize the newspaper industry, but this is an interesting new take on product sampling.

Award-winning work

AB&C earned 11 awards, including a “Best in Show,” at the Twenty-Sixth Annual Healthcare Advertising Awards, the nation’s oldest and largest healthcare advertising awards competition, sponsored by Healthcare Marketing Report. Click to see the winning creative.

AB&C took top honors (the “Best in Show” award) for developing a Physician Recruitment Showcase Book on behalf of Geisinger Health System of Danville, Pennsylvania. Physician recruitment is challenging and highly competitive —particularly for Geisinger Health System, a renowned but remote health system in rural Pennsylvania. Recruitment branding has always represented Geisinger as a place where physicians are thought leaders and innovators — where they can be heard, do research, teach and pioneer revolutionary treatments and modalities.

Our idea was to create a showcase book that would capture the essence of the Geisinger physician experience. The book parallels scientific/technologic photography with quotes that aren’t so much inspirational as they are aspirational. We chose quotes from contemporary sources rather than “dead Greek guys.” Other photography captured the lifestyle of the physicians with captions that contrasted their leisure pastimes with their clinical pursuits. Response has been good — the piece has gotten high marks from physician candidates.

The Whopper Sacrifice

Did you hear about Burger King’s recent “Whopper Sacrifice” Facebook promotion? The promotion attempted to get Facebook users to “sacrifice” ten friends in exchange for a coupon for a free Whopper.

Facebook didn’t like the promotion and Burger King had to take it down after one week, but only after 234,000 friendships had ended.

Here’s what happened. Burger King launched the “Whopper Sacrifice” micro-site, where Facebook users could install the Whopper Sacrifice Application. The application allowed you to delete 10 friends in exchange for a coupon for a free Whopper. According to statistics, over 89,000 Facebook members added the application. To add an interesting twist, the friend’s profile photo was set on fire through animation once you chose to delete him or her.

Are we seeing a brand-new way to use Facebook? Will others try similar stunts?

The reality of print advertising.

Well, maybe not greatly exaggerated, but there’s a sliver of hope for the faltering industry – at least for the time being.

A new survey of American readers by The Rosen Group, about the state of current and future media, found that nearly 80% of respondents still subscribe to magazines; 83% find that daily newspapers are still relevant. Of those surveyed, though, 40% were uncertain whether newspapers and magazines would exist in 10 years.

The results suggest that although there’s a strong shift to online news consumption and a strong preference for online sources for breaking news, Americans still believe print publications are important to their lives.

The research brief was published by the Center for Media Research – online.

Twestivals...social networking for charity.

What happens when civic-minded social networkers decide to rally together and use technology to raise money for charity? A Twestival!

In September 2008, a group of Twitterers based in London decided to organize an event at which the local Twitter community could socialize in person. During the event, they also solicited donations to charity. The bulk of the event was organized in under two weeks, via Twitter.

And so began Twestivals. Stories started appearing of local Twitter communities coming together and taking similar action for charitable organizations. And in February 2009, 200+ cities participated in an international Twestival to raise money for a good cause: water.

Read more about how Twitter and Twestivals are making a local impact on a global scale.

Brands and Twitter

By now, you have probably heard people talking about Twitter. Reporters are Twittering during the commercials breaks on CNN and Fox News. Senators were Twittering during President Obama’s recent address. It seems like every day, someone else is joining Twitter.

But what the heck is Twitter? And how can advertisers use it effectively?

Twitter is part social network, part blog. It allows its users to send and read other users’ updates (known as tweets), which are text-based posts of up to 140 characters.

Mashable, a blog about social media, has posted its review of 40 of the best brands that are using Twitter. Mashable also has thoughts on why major brands do belong on Twitter. So read on and decide if you (or your employer) should be on Twitter.

Blogs and the mainstream media

Blog content aggregator and search site Technorati will soon release its Technorati Attention Index, which measures the incidence of blogs linking to mainstream media sites during the last 30 days. Traditional news sources such as The New York Times, CNN and the BBC are leaders, most likely indicating the high influence of politics and the economy, versus, as examples, entertainment and technology reporting.Read full post...

The reality of cruises

Think of any Caribbean cruise TV commercial you’ve ever seen. Most likely you’d envision endless “beautiful people” cavorting in sky-deck swimming pools, working out in floating fitness centers and toasting each other in seagoing gourmet restaurants. After spending a vacation day aboard a well-advertised cruise line ship, I’m here to tell you: Nothing could be further from reality. During the last week of February, I attended a wedding aboard a colossal pleasure craft that sat docked in the Port of Tampa, which gave me a few fleeting hours to drink in the surroundings. The ship was about to set sail and wedding guests were granted temporary access to witness the ceremony.Read full post...

Targeted cable advertising

Ads specifically geared to your household! Yes, cable companies are finally going to be able to do what the direct mail business has been doing since the beginning of time. The New York Times reported that Cablevision Systems is planning to announce the largest project yet using targeted advertising on television.Read full post...

During the month of March, most of America’s sports-minded souls have found themselves “on the road to The Final Four.” I heard that CBS-TV broadcast 96 hours of college basketball action in one weekend alone.

And, if you’re part of an NCAA office pool, you’ve probably spent a lot of those 96 hours glued to your TV. That’s because gambling helps the sports world go ‘round.Read full post...

Marketing for non-profits

I know, I know, I know…everybody’s got something to worry about or stress over with the economy plummeting down the tubes of Americans’ own greed and poor planning. It only makes sense that companies are looking to their marketing departments to start cutting corners wherever possible.

However, in our beloved advertising industry, we cannot let that stand in the way of our creative teams continuously expressing their imaginations and keeping their ideas fresh. Read full post...

An example of viral marketing.

Ken Block’s spirited gymkhana video finally made AdGabber today. For those of you not familiar with Subaru beyond taking your Labrador and 2.5 kids for an off-road picnic, the company has an amazing history of hooliganism thanks to the spirited Impreza line and the tunability of its turbo four and chuckability of AWD.Read full post...

Thinking outside the box

So much is made of “thinking out-of-the-box” that it is beginning to sound trite. And where is the line that differentiates out-of-the-box thinking from way-out-there thinking or out-in-left-field thinking? Does that really matter?

Sometimes the solution you end up with is perfect—maybe not for the problem you began with, but for something else. I guess what matters is the process by which you arrived at that particular solution. It’s what happens when we try to reach beyond ourselves. Sometimes it works out perfectly; most often it doesn’t or hasn’t gone far enough.Read full post...

Customer Relationships Management

A travel-related client of ours recently came to us looking for marketing vehicles which could energize its aging loyalty program member list and have trackable ROI. With the travel industry seeing hard times this change in direction is quite timely, with many companies transitioning from an awareness focus to a retention focus.Read full post...

Next time you have a few free moments, check out Stuff White People Like. It’s a blog where this guy gently mocks, well, the random stuff white people like.

It makes me laugh out loud, but what can I say, I’m that girl with the hummus and gluten free crackers.

http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com

I suggest heading straight over to the “Full List of Stuff White People Like” at the top to peruse all of his posts. Some of my faves include Self Aware Hip Hop References, Difficult Breakups, Expensive Sandwiches and Not Having a TV.

Ya gotta admit, it’s pretty on target…