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Archive for November, 2005

Word Of Mouth Basic Training

30 Nov 2005

WOMMA’s Word of Mouth Training (WOMBAT) Blog kicked off on November 24th. They started the blog, along with the companion email newsletter and podcast series, to provide practical, hands-on advice about word of mouth marketing. And so they do.

How-To : Dealing With Negative Word of Mouth – 5 Tips from Ketchum’s Paul Rand

1. Know your detractor
2. Listen to your complaints
3. Have facts readily available
4. Maintain perspective
5. Activate your influencers

Read all about these 5 tips

"Digging up dirt on the bad guy will only land you in more hot water, Paul says. But with a thoughtful, honest approach, negative word of mouth can be counteracted quickly."

wombat

Visit [the WOMBAT blog] via [i-Wisdom]

 

10 Steps In A Project’s Process

30 Nov 2005

So funny, yet so sad and true :) – Communication skills are such an underestimated gift.
Click the toon to go to ScaryIdeas and have a good laugh.

project

From the [ScaryIdeas] website

via [i-Wisdom]

 
 

Shop In Your Undies Day

30 Nov 2005

November 29th will from yesterday on be referred to as ’shop in your undies day’. The initiative has been lauched by MSN Shopping, together with Cedric the Entertainer. Slices from the official press release that was published yesterday :

"Cedric appeared in New York’s Times Square to demonstrate that by shopping on the new and improved MSN Shopping, consumers can dress in whatever they want, even their undies. Shopping on MSN is not only easier than ever, it allows consumers to avoid holiday crowds and find great values on tens of millions of products from thousands of retailers.

Today Cedric was met by a huge crowd of fans, tourists and native New Yorkers in Times Square. As Cedric told the crowd that MSN Shopping is ‘the’ place to shop dressed in whatever they want, some 50 men and women suddenly stripped down to just their winter coats and boxer shorts and marched through the crowded streets alongside Cedric singing holiday songs.

A new survey conducted by Harris Interactive Inc. and commissioned by MSN Shopping shows that they’re not the only ones stripping down before shopping online. According to the survey, 31 percent of U.S. online adults have indeed shopped online in their undies. "

msn shop in your undies day

Nathan : "And here I had this crazy idea that almost every woman on the planet wears some form of panties, yet in that crowd, every single person, man or woman, was wearing boxers. Coincidentally, many of those boxers had MSN Shopping logos. Pure coincidence."

Read more : [the press release] via [InsideMicrosoft]

 

12 Tips for Targeting Inactive Subscribers

30 Nov 2005

EmailLabs has 12 tips on what you can do to re-engage the inactive subscribers for your newsletters, panel or promotional marketing :

1. Use special offers
2. Survey subscribers
3. Allow profile updates
4. Understand their demographics/profile
5. Try different send dates/times
6. Modify the frequency
7. Create different content
8. Try different formats
9. Test different styles of subject lines
10. Monitor seed/proof lists
11. Send a postcard through regular mail
12. Move re-engaged to active status

Source & description for each tip : [EmailLabs]

Also read : 15 Tips For Improved Subject Lines.

 

Showdown : Viral EurobestLive 2005 Awards

30 Nov 2005

My nephew, currently working for the Dubois Meets Fugger brandbreeding agency, said they’re in the running for the European Awards For Creative Excellence (running from November 29th til December 1st).

The viral they’re nominated for is for the Mini, and it’s a pretty good one. Other known competitor is These Days, the agency I’ve been helping out a bit just recently, with their ‘Need More Space‘ campaign for Pioneer.

For Dubois Meets Fugger :

The Mini Site shows a nifty clip, but the campaign has been terminated on June 17th.
The campaign itself was based on a rather revolutionary degree of interactivity, where participants could enter their friends’ mobile numbers, and those friends would then receive an email with a link to the viral clip. The cult-movie styled clip with extremely weird situations and actors shows people who’re receiving a phone call. The last call made is one to… the friend’s own mobile phone. Pretty funky !

The word that’s mentioned is ‘Béguinage’ a French word that covers a small religious city where Beguines used to live. These so-called “holy women” (Latin: mulieres sanctae, or mulieres religiosae) first appeared in Liège toward the end of the 12th century. Use of the word “Beguine” (Latin: beguina) was established by the 1230’s. Its etymology is uncertain. This word ‘Béguinage’ was a password to win two Mini convertibles for two months.

This is a scene from the Mini micro-site, click to go there


Mini Béguinage - Begijnhof

Here’s a scene from the viral, click to go there

Scene

This viral is listed on page #8 of the nominees.

As for These Days, I’ve mentioned their campaign before. The clip itself doesn’t really have the ‘waw, cool’-emotion a viral really needs, but it still is a pretty funny viral. Overall reactions from the people that’ve seen it is that it’s good, but a little too short to be a very good viral and that the idea might be dubbed from another clip that ran across the internet a little while before this viral popped up. (the one with the antilope running through the open prairie and then bumping into the one tree that was growing there, right next to two lions who were seeking refuge from the burning sun.) Still, an antilope isn’t a biker and animals aren’t human beings so a totally different emotion is being triggered. See it in the These Days Archive or check out the clip below :

This viral is listed on page #9 of the nominees.

Thanks for the tip [Flowris] !

 

Links For Nov. 30th

30 Nov 2005

Randy has a blog in the running for the Canadian Blog Awards. His nomination in the Best Sports Blog award is Game Certainty. Any votes would be tremendously appreciated.
You can vote everyday. If you love Randy, spread the word and go vote !

Closely Related : KBCafe Blog Network OPML
Other interesting stuff :

* Sesamize Your Banana (or a compatible cell phone) – Sesame Street Mobile
* A new “Wikipedia Browser” named Gollum – and some other Wikipedia tools.
* RFID In Your TiVo?
* Google’s original PageRank equation – via [Besting Adwords]
* TiVo and Yahoo! bring some new functionality to your DVR
* CustomizeGoogle Offers New Option to Block Google Analytics Cookies
* ICANN’s Latest Get-Rich Scheme: Single-Letter Domains
* TiVo To Offer TV Ad Search
* Define: Accidense
* StarSight – Street lamps recharge cell phones
* eMiniMalls v. Adsense – Which is Better?
* AutoScreenRecorder 2.0 Pro and Free Released
* Sony BMG Knew About The Rootkit Before It Went Public
* Girlfriends Against Video Games
— I’m still waiting for ‘Girlfriends Against Blogs’ :)

Download :
Because they found there is a real thirst for timely, industry specific email marketing statistics, Bronto has just released its first quarterly industry statistics report.

Read the report here [pdf!] and sign up to receive the quarterly industry statistics report via email. – From [Email Marketing, Best Practices]

 

Meeting Scoble

29 Nov 2005

Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s most famous geek blogger, is coming to Belgium right after his stay in France at the ‘Les Blogs 2.0′ conference on December 5th & 6th, where he’ll (by then) have participated in the Naked Conversations. There’s going to be a Brussels Geek Dinner on December 8th at the Serenata, and everyone’s invited. Scoble will drop by, together with Maryam, on their way to London and he’ll talk about corporate blogging & its effects, discuss how to deal with blogs, why blogs are hot – or talk about any other geek topic. Looks like it’s going to be a very interesting night in Brussels.

So, if you’d like to join us, here are the details lined up :

What: Brussels Geek Dinner
Date: December 8th 2005
Time: 6:30pm
Where: Serenata, Zaventem (MSN Maps)
Who is welcome?: Everyone!

The evening has been organized by David Boschmans, and you can ’sign up’
by sending him an email (click on this link, find address in post) or by dropping

a comment in the announcement-blogpost to confirm your presence.

By the way, Scoble officially moved to the WordPress blog, so visit the Scoblizer here.[rss]

Also visit Maryam Ghaemmaghami Scoble’s musings about Life, Love and Everything Else.

Scoble anno 2004
 

Google Cuisine

29 Nov 2005

Chef Charlie Ayers, Google’s 39 years old maître de cuisine, has his own website now where he’s put up some fine recipes (I hope a lot more are coming soon) :

• Basic Meatloaf
• Green Salad
• Grilled Bread
• Romesco Sauce
• Sauteed Spinach
• Chicken Thighs
• Catalan Style Mushrooms

Great tips ! I think I’m gonna try the meatloaf one of these days, for starters !

Chef
"Whenever possible, please use organics and or natural products
with as little preservatives as possible.
"

visit [Chef Charlie Ayers] via [SearchEngineWatch]
Update 18/01/2006 : Today there’s about 40 more recipes online ! Yummy !