Nov

9

Thoughts on Ogilvy-isms

Filed Under Advertising, Books, Marketing | 1 Comment 

I just finished reading Confessions of an Advertising Man by David Ogilvy. I bought the book earlier this year after having read Then We Set His Hair on Fire by Phil Dusenberry, another advertising executive from BBDO which I also wrote about.

I enjoyed both books, although I found David Ogilvy’s book too dry at times because certain sections were written like an advertising manual. Here are a few important Ogilvy-isms (concepts, tactics, or techniques) of his that caught my attention.

Never write an advertisement which you wouldn’t want your own family to read. (pg. 127)

Plain and simple, who likes to be lied to or mislead? Too many marketers and advertisers assume that their target market is not smart or internet savvy. The online resources available now for people to check the facts are massive. With large blogs like the Consumerist and millions of searchable, smaller personal blogs; nothing gets by anymore. False advertising attempts will be blogged and micro-blogged about while the more traditional word-of-mouth also takes effect at the same time. Then, the story will most likely be picked up by other major publications and media outlets.

If it doesn’t sell without sound, it is useless. (pg. 160)

Whoever decided it was a good idea to automatically increase the volume of commercials should know that it was a horrible idea. Because of this annoyance, I find myself muting the TV once a commercial break hits. I have already started to notice the same trend with online streaming shows. There may be no statistic for this, but I am pretty sure an ad viewer is probably 99% less likely to purchase whatever is being advertised if they find it annoying. Anyway, that’s not the point here when Ogilvy says sell without sound. What I think he means is keep the word count low, don’t sound too aggressive, and back up the sound with memorable images. That way if sound is taken out of the equation at least the images will stick.

Big ideas are usually simple ideas. (pg. 195)

I couldn’t agree more, especially when it comes to the mobile channel. In the rapidly growing world of mobile marketing, too many companies are trying to dive into it with elaborate, but often messy approaches. It’s very easy to start off with a simple idea then add on too many other factors which you might convince yourself are essential. They may be essential, but once you give anybody too many options, it starts to get too confusing and overwhelming which is a major turn-off.

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Oct

22

How To: Getting started with an unactivated T-mobile G1

Filed Under Gadgets, Mobile | 60 Comments 

As of right now, there still no quick way of unlocking or “jailbreaking” the T-mobile G1. But, it’s fairly easy to set up the phone to be used for everything besides making calls (unless a VoIP app becomes available in the future like the iPhone). I was able to purchase a G1 earlier today without signing up for a new 2 year contract with T-mobile (at the $399 price). The store manager was reluctant to sell it at first without a contract but finally agreed after some convincing. The fact that it didn’t look like the launch demand was as high as they thought it would be, definitely helped. It seems that the stores have been given specific instructions not to sell any G1’s without a new 2 year contract, at least until the first couple of shipments are sold. It’s a hit or miss.

The G1 was purchased for my company to use for testing purposes only, so we just wanted to be able to access all the phone features, apps, and internet browsing whenever connected to a nearby Wi-Fi network. And we did not want to get stuck paying for 2 years of monthly service to do so. Here are the steps we followed to get past the initial setup without having an activated SIM card. (Note: You will need a friends activated T-mobile SIM card for only a couple of minutes - data charges may apply.)

  1. Insert friends activated T-mobile SIM into G1 along with battery
  2. Power on and wait for setup screen
  3. Go through setup process to link any Gmail account
  4. Go to Settings > Wireless Controls > Wi-Fi Settings > Enable Wi-Fi
  5. Connect to nearby Wi-Fi network if one is available
  6. Optional: Stop the phone from syncing with Gmail account by going to Data Synchronization and unchecking Auto-sync, Gmail, Calendar, and Contacts
  7. Once done, take out friends SIM card and insert unactivated SIM that came with G1

If you already have T-mobile service, you should be able to pop your SIM right in and get going. You can also do the same with a G1 purchased from eBay and using a prepaid T-mobile SIM card. I doubt T-mobile will do anything to change this because you are paying full price for the phone! One other thing to note is if you would like to change the Gmail account in which the phone syncs with, a soft reset is necessary and you must follow these steps again. For a comprehensive review of the G1, check out Engadget’s hardware and software posts which are very detailed. Also, check out my colleagues initial thoughts on how Google is becoming more evil because of this.

If you know of any other ways, please leave a comment. I will also be keeping an eye out for unlocking instructions as they become available. Connect with me on Twitter @jsmakr.

Update: Got linked to by Engadget and Gizmodo! Please see my comment below if you are confused about the difference between ‘unactivated’ and ‘unlocked’.

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Oct

12

Getting co-workers and friends started on Twitter

Filed Under Social Media | 8 Comments 

Would you like to change the fact that not many of the people you know are using Twitter? I want to share with everyone the email I sent out recently to try and get my co-workers to see the value in Twitter and start using it themselves. I have included that email below (after making some changes to make it more generic and as short as possible). Feel free to copy, edit, and send out the email to your co-workers and friends.

Dear non-Twitter users,

I want to introduce you to Twitter. It’s a micro-blogging tool which I have found to be very valuable in networking and learning new information. If you don’t even have a facebook or LinkedIn account, then just ignore this - you won’t be interested in Twitter because it’s not for everyone. I didn’t think it would be useful at first but after using it for several months that has changed and I have even networked with some cool people because of Twitter.

First, watch this if you have no idea what Twitter is about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ddO9idmax0o

Second, read this guide by the CEO of Zappos (the largest online shoe retailer here in the US) http://twitter.zappos.com/start. He wrote this open letter to try and get his employees to start using Twitter after he found value in it. He now has 448 out of his 1,600 employees using Twitter to get to know other co-workers and stay in touch with each other. Besides networking, it’s also used by brands for PR/customer service purposes which is what many major companies are already doing including Starbucks, Honda, Virgin America, and Dell.

Lastly, read this blog post I wrote about getting started and using Twitter for business networking and also make sure to read about proper Twitter etiquette here.

I also thought it would cool to setup a TigerSpike account for the company. Once we build up our company account we could use it to get feedback, keep in touch with clients, and announce company news and new projects.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Out of the 35 people at my company, I got 5 people to sign up within a day so then I sent this follow-up email to those people:

Hey guys,

Glad to see I got at least a few people to sign up so far :) Just wanted to follow-up with a few more pointers. It’s important once you get started to start searching for interesting people and follow them:

- Use the search found here: https://twitter.com/invitations (click on the ‘Search’ tab) and enter keywords words that might interest you like ‘mobile new york’ and ‘advertising syndey’ or check out some of the people I started following on my account: http://twitter.com/jsmakr/friends.

- At the bare minimum, please fill out your full name and Bio so you look legit and people follow you back.

- It’s annoying to have to navigate to the twitter site all the time, so I use a desktop client called Thwirl to see updates, respond, and update my account. Download it and let me know if you have any questions setting it up.

Thanks.

Since these emails were sent, there was a great webinar with video and slides by HubSpot for beginners on How to Use Twitter for Marketing & PR which I would have included somewhere in the first email. I should have also mentioned how important it is to start tweeting, Tip #2 in this ProBlogger article.

Did I miss any other vital information or links that should be essential for beginners? Let me know if you have trouble copying and pasting the info with working links and I will help you out. Connect with me on Twitter @jsmakr.

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