Make PDF files talk

Do you know that if you are using Adobe Reader 6.0 or 7.0, you can have a bot talk on the contents of the pdf file? Want to try it? Open a pdf file then:

Ctrl+shift+b - to hear the entire document
Ctrl+shift+v - to hear the page
Ctrl+shift+c - to resume
Ctrl+shift+e - to stop
Try out “hear the page” if “hear the entire document” doesn’t seem to work because of long pdf file content.

Creative cups

Study reveals startling attitude about spam

A just-released study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project reveals that although the volume of spam is growing in Americans' personal and workplace email accounts, email users are less bothered by it than they were before.

Less exposure to pornographic spam -- cited as the most offensive type of unsolicited email -- and an increased use of email filters combined with greater awareness of what constitutes spam contribute to their reactions.

The study's author points out the good and the bad of the situation. The good news: Spam has not become a significant deterrent to the use of email, as some observers speculated it might when unsolicited email first began flooding users' inboxes several years ago. But the bad news is it continues to degrade the integrity of email. Some 55 percent of email users say they have lost trust in email because of spam.

Podcast: Open source advertising

In an age where life is a mix and every American is a DJ, it's only natural that marketers would start to empower the Average Joe to create his own advertising. It's happening now and it’s taking root quickly. Even without being asked, consumers are creating advertising and some smart marketers are steering those consumer efforts in a mutually beneficial direction.

The dangers of ceding some control of your brand to your consumers are many, but so are the rewards, when everything comes together. It is as much an art as it is a science, and the rules are not yet established.

In this provocative panel discussion, marketers and agencies representing four dominant brands -- Converse, Adidas, Dove and Southwest Airlines -- will explore the process, trials, tribulations and rewards of consumer-generated advertising and light the path for those who will follow.

Speaker(s): Doug Weaver, president, Upstream Group; Sarah Fay, president, Isobar U.S.; Jill Howard-Allen, online marketing manager, Southwest Airlines; Babs Rangaiah, director, Media & Entertainment, Unilever USA

KFC edits YouTube videos into TV spot

Instead of going the now done to death getting people into creating videos for the company route, KFC started from the other end and scoured YouTube for clips it then compiled into a spot.

USA Today: "On Tuesday on American Idol, KFC will air an ad built from snippets of consumers' Web videos. The ad, called "Celebration," shows people pumping fists, flipping, jumping and generally going bonkers, ostensibly for the chain's new menu of chicken with no trans fats.

KFC evaluated 400 videos and got approval to use 35, before making the final cut to clips from 13 people, including a vegetarian."

See the video.

When will ad agencies inIndia come up with such ideas?

Mosquito style

To call attention to the malaria plight many Britons face as they travel abroad, here’s martial arts-themed video that shows the importance of properly fighting off mosquitoes.

Mosquito Style - It Only Takes One Bite - More free videos are here

Businesses should ditch Yellow Pages for blogs

Are you running a business? If so, advertising your business is a good way to get more business, and an old, effective way is to advertise your business by placing an entry in the Yellow Pages.

But nowadays, how do people search for information? The answer for many people is that they use the Internet and the search engines. And search engines love blogs.

There have been many times that I have started a blog and notice hits from search engines in my hit counter statistics not very long after I started the blog, writes Peter Chen. Not only that, quite often, a particular post come up quite high in the search result page, and not infrequently in the first result.

So if you run a business, start a website for the business plus set up a blog to draw traffic to your business site.

Dropped calls?

The death of PowerPoint

For all those folks who insist on putting everything on the slide and then reading it all out loud.

The whole thing: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/04/03/1175366240499.html


Extracts:

If you have ever wondered why your eyes start glazing over as you read those dot points on the screen, as the same words are being spoken, take heart in knowing there is a scientific explanation.

It is more difficult to process information if it is coming at you in the written and spoken form at the same time.

[..]

Pioneered at the University of NSW, the research shows the human brain processes and retains more information if it is digested in either its verbal or written form, but not both at the same time.

[..]

"The use of the PowerPoint presentation has been a disaster," Professor Sweller said. "It should be ditched."

"It is effective to speak to a diagram, because it presents information in a different form. But it is not effective to speak the same words that are written, because it is putting too much load on the mind and decreases your ability to understand what is being presented."

Tip of the hat to Peter Griffin.

Why one ad agency hired an ad agency

Dating back to the 1930s, Campbell-Mithun, Minneapolis, has been helping marketers fix what ails their brands, but the shop recently found a brand-repair project it had to outsource: its own.

Management at the Interpublic Group of Cos. agency found its brand meant little in the marketplace -- and that many prospective clients saw it primarily as a solid account-service shop that offered middling creative. Even worse, executives there said, its own employees were beginning to buy into that perception, reports AdAge.

So, perhaps at the risk of some embarrassment, C-M asked another agency -- Cue, also of Minneapolis -- for help. "It's a bit like heart surgery," said Campbell-Mithun CEO Jack Rooney. "You can't operate on yourself."

Agencies -- particularly bigger, older ones such as Campbell-Mithun -- are beginning to pay far more attention to the state of their own brands as they try to confront the reasons for sluggish growth in recent years.

Some, such as J. Walter Thompson and the Chicago office of BBDO, have opted to change their names entirely, either to imply a larger streamlining of operations at a place previously seen as siloed and lumbering -- as in JWT -- or to disassociate with its hometown's sluggish reputation -- as in Energy BBDO.

Other shops, such as Leo Burnett (which like both C-M and JWT is associated with charismatic, Depression-era founders) have struggled to confront a branding dichotomy. Burnett's creative in Asia, Europe and Latin America is seen as edgy and envelope-pushing, while its U.S. flagship is seen as the stodgy shop best known for wholesome creations such as the Keebler Elves and the Maytag Repairman -- a reputation executives said has hindered the shop's efforts to add new clients in recent years.

Altoids: Curious

Classic twist-in-the tale TV commercials for Altoids.

Blogging as a marketing strategy

From a marketing perspective there are several potential reasons to blog. But, as always, it depends on what you want. Blogs are no different from channels like video, print, audio, presentations and so on. They all deliver results - but of varying kind. The kind you can expect from blogs is mainly about stronger relations with important target groups.

• Become the expert
• Customer relationships
• Media relations
• Internal collaboration
• Knowledge management
• Recruitment
• Test ideas or products
• Rank high in search engines
• Gain inbound links
• Online promotion
• Site visitor loyalty

Do you have any more points to add?

Sad-vertising

Sad-vertising: using negative and more complex emotions in advertising. Why it is that humour has come to dominate at the expense of other more compelling emotions? David Bonney of the blog “Feel Anything?” is in favour of achieving emotional impact in advertising by using negative emotions. Like this Thai Insurance ad.

Verizon faces blogger fury

Found this blog very insightful. Demonstrates the damage caused when one irate customer goes public:
http://verizonmath.blogspot.com/2006/12/transcription-jt.html


Apparently, Verizon charged him $0.002 per KB instead of 0.002 cents per KB when he downloaded some data while in Canada. When he called the customer reps, they didn't know the difference between $0.002 and 0.002 cents.

He created a blog, which got real popular, then a Verizonmath T-shirt contest. Here are the entries:
http://verizonmath.fortunecity.com/


He's been refunded the money by Verizon. Though the damage has been done.

Hat tip to Parul Raj.

BBC: Rush Hour

David Belle does some breathtaking stunts for BBC's Rush Hour.

Viral marketing Hall of Fame 2007

Get ready for some inspiration, folks. MarketingSherpa’s editorial staffers have been busy poring over the 100+ viral marketing submissions for our third annual Viral Hall of Fame. They have narrowed the list to 10 inductees this year that span various niches in both B-to-C and B-to-B.

Includes creative samples and results data for viral efforts targeting organic moms, Hong Kong’s Gen Y, America’s Gen X and tight-focus biz professionals. Plus, a nifty way to get celebrities more involved in fundraising.

Yes, it’s 2007 in the viral marketing world, and Internet users aren’t so easily impressed with just any game, contest or video clip. That’s what makes this year’s Hall of Fame winners so impressive -- they cut through the clutter with panache.

What separated these from many of the other submissions was that they tackled a tough issue and got fantastic results. Normally, they accomplished this via elaborate seeding tactics, targeted multichannel placements, strong creative (once again, the importance of great copy becomes evident) and dedicated follow-through.

Five prevailing ideas:

-> Organizations should take notice that viral isn’t just for commercial marketers. Use Web 2.0 in communities that make sense for whoever’s interest you represent.

Ever get a call from a nonprofit, where the phone rep pushes you too far down the donation cycle/read-script before you can manage to ask a single question? That approach *never* works. You may want to try online communities and viral because they’re the antithesis to hard-sell fundraising.

-> B-to-B viral is gaining steam. This year, we have a winner who used a fun video (check it out, Space Invaders fans) and another that employed a crafty online contest.

It’s worth noting that television marketing is being usurped by the Internet as we speak. Yep, the new primetime is 9-5 and encompasses URLs, not remote controls.

This should be more fun than an amusement park for B-to-B marketers. As one example, software professionals -- who often belong to online communities and have company purchasing-decision authority -- are ripe for offers.

-> As was the case in 2006, we saw marketers thrive despite shoestring viral budgets. Of course, these campaigns are often created by tiny in-house teams.

This is not to say that you shouldn't hire an experienced viral agency to help. But, if you can't afford it and you are a *very* clever and/or lucky marketer, viral can still be a do-it-yourself tactic.

-> Track your results as specifically as possible. One of this year’s winners turned in video numbers from dozens of community sites. His results are already fabulous. But with that kind of tracking, we cannot wait to see what he turns in next year -- because the more you hone in on what works to achieve your goals, the better you will get at lassoing viral audiences by the clusters.

-> Blogs and message boards still appear to be the seeding source of choice. With that said, don’t forget about optimizing press releases. Plant optimized keywords in your headline, opening paragraph and hotlink wording!

Opinions color blogs everywhere, but what the mainstream press has to say still carries a lot of weight. If this wasn’t true, you wouldn’t see online articles from traditional warhorses, such as The New York Times, Sports Illustrated and Lucky, popping up everywhere in the blogosphere. *Traditional* publicity bounces like crazy on the Internet.

Now, onto the winners:

#1. Sunflower Market
MarketingSherpa Summary: Here's a colorful online-offline viral combo that introduced an organic foods retail brand to suburban moms. We loved the downloadable (and forwardable) desktop plant that needed to be watered and fertilized on a daily basis. Media outlets were snail-mailed sunflower pots, and the guerilla team *seeded* neighborhood lawns in a three-mile radius with store-branded cardboard sunflowers. Did it succeed? Bloggers picked up on the sunflower app, and they beat their first month's sales goals by 18%. Oh, yeah, and Whole Foods' plans to build a competing store were put on hold.

Click to view campaign details: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/viralawards2007/1.html

#2. Netcosm
MarketingSherpa Summary: Few efforts can drive a video campaign as elaborate seeding does. For one business-to-business marketer, it really paid off. Netscom placed its video on YouTube and Google Video, as well as on more targeted sites/blogs, such as Digg, Techmeme, Brightcove, Grouper, Motionbox, DailyMotion, GoFish and Veoh. By day four, the video had 49,808 views, answering the question: can B-to-B videos go viral, too?

Click to view campaign details: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/viralawards2007/2.html

#3. Farm Aid
MarketingSherpa Summary: With no budget, Farm Aid wanted to increase traffic in the three months before their annual September benefit concert. They created a cool microsite and ran a contest challenging fans to upload photos and explain why they were the ultimate fan. Email signup and a tell-a-friend feature also appeared at the site. In response, the site received millions of visits, and paid subscriptions increased 73% for their Farmyard Fanclub membership compared to the year before.

Click to view campaign details: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/viralawards2007/3.html

#4. The Gobbledygook Manifesto
MarketingSherpa Summary: You know how PR folks like to use buzz-laden words in their press releases -- "next generation," "flexible," "robust," "turnkey," "best of breed." Ugh. Such gobbledygook was the topic of an article by consultant David Meerman Scott, a repeat Hall of Famer, who saw superb viral for his new book -- by simply seeding the piece on his blog, forwarding the article to a few friends and issuing a press release with the most-used offending words. Total cost: a few hundred dollars. ROI: $50,000 in new business. His cleverness certainly caught fire.

Click to view campaign details: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/viralawards2007/4.html

#5. Levi Strauss Hong Kong
MarketingSherpa Summary: Levi Strauss Hong Kong kicked off a create-your-own-video campaign to promote their TYPE 1 jeans, offering a prize for those who would answer, "How bold are you?" They seeded unbranded viral videos at YouTube before the launch and followed up with banners, a microsite, print ads and wireless ring tones. Within 60 days, the videos were viewed more than 474,000 times on YouTube alone, and marketshare for the jeans in Hong Kong jumped from 13% to 33%.

Click to view campaign details: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/viralawards2007/5.html

#6. TaxBrain.com
MarketingSherpa Summary: It's not every day that guerilla marketing gets replayed on ESPN over and over. Essentially, TaxBrain.com hired actors to fake the theft of a race car and make it look real, so real that it inadvertently aired as a real news story. Throw in the fact that they were targeting male NASCAR fans (yes, there were women in bikinis in the video, too) and wave the checkered flag, folks, because we have a winner. The effort received thousands of YouTube views and easily topped $1 million in free television advertising for a little-known tax-preparation site.

Click to view campaign details: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/viralawards2007/6.html

#7. Six Degrees/Network for Good
MarketingSherpa Summary: Lots of causes have celebrity sign-off, but are you using that famous sponsor to the fullest extent? Here's an effort that other nonprofits can learn from. Check out this Kevin Bacon-driven social networking initiative (with smart use of an AIM webpage) that garnered extremely high-end press and hundreds of thousands of site visits.

Click to view campaign details: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/viralawards2007/7.html

#8. Beacon Street Girls
MarketingSherpa Summary: B*tween Productions wins the try-and-try-again award for this Beacon Street Girls branding effort. To coincide with book releases and school holidays, they launched several games for girls, each tied to a different Beacon Street character. While the first two were mind-challenging (sigh, who wants to think during a school break!), the third game -- Katani's Fashion Frenzy -- created a forwarding frenzy. Noticing the activity, B*tween Productions switched gears and rolled out two more fashion-related games, and more are on the way.

Click to view campaign details: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/viralawards2007/8.html

#9. Exeros Inc.
MarketingSherpa Summary: What better way to engage a techie audience than to challenge them to a digital contest and dangle a $25,000 prize in front of their noses? Exeros intelligently synched a contest with an upcoming annual conference to create an online-offline bounce. Not only did they receive more attention than they thought they would get, but they also received an unusually high qualified lead rate and a big lift in website traffic.

Click to view campaign details: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/viralawards2007/9.html

#10. Fox's 'American Dad' DVD
MarketingSherpa Summary: Friend-to-friend is nice, but connecting with international audiences of like-minded interests is truly how efforts go viral. Fox used this concept when they ran the unusual online game American Dad vs Family Guy Kung Fu to promote the release of 'American Dad Vol. 1' on DVD. The game got picked up by humor sites and gaming blogs, but most of the buzz spread through the shows' fan sites and blogs around the world.

Click to view campaign details: http://www.marketingsherpa.com/viralawards2007/10.html

Instant online stress test

Look at the pictures to notice if you see movement, then read what is below.

What do you see?

One teacher said, "I felt like they were all moving...but slowly. Kinda like, they were breathing."

The pictures above are used to test the level of stress a person can handle.

The slower the pictures move, the better your ability of handling stress.

Alleged criminals that were tested see them spinning around madly; however, senior citizens and kids see them standing still.

None of these images are animated - they are perfectly still.