I'm Txting This Post

I don't like texting. I mean, I guess it's better than making a two second call to say, "I'll be home 30 minutes late", but I don't really like bothering with it. Then again, maybe that's just because my crappy old phone has a hard to push 7 button which gives me achy fingers. Anyway, regardless of my personal opinions, most people like texting. In fact, over the past two years text messaging has increased 450%, significantly outpacing the number of mobile phone calls made over the same period.

Comic from http://joshreads.com/images/07/02/i070208garfield.gif

Now, if you fail to see the point of this post, or you're saying to yourself, "Gee, I wish Rob would write another post about farting", then you might need to reevaluate whether you've got the right mindset for a career in marketing. Even I, "txt h8r" though I am, can recognize that this is the kind of news that is relevant to the future of the industry. Emerging technologies and user trends are key things to study if you want to be at the forefront of the marketing business.

Our generation, like none before us, is highly literate in digital media. Figuring out new ways to generate a conversation with a consumer is a huge part of marketing and being aware of news items like the one above is an important way to stay in the loop.

Thanks to MarketingVOX for posting Nielsen Mobile's report.

Farting in Advertising: Good or Bad?

It's taken me 165 posts to get here, but I'm proud to say that today I have been blessed with the opportunity to legitimately blog about farting for Experience.com. Thank you, thank you. There's so many people I'd like to thank. It's just overwhelming.

Anyway, I've been allowed to take this foray into flatulence because of a new ad campaign released by Extended Stay Hotels. The campaign, based around the new tagline "No place makes you feel more comfortable", shows a variety of hotel guests cutting the cheese, with no apparent shame, thanks to the comfortable surroundings of Extended Stay's hotel rooms, lobbies and hallways. Interestingly, they don't show hotel guests tooting in crowded elevators. Apparently that part of the hotel just isn't comfy enough.

While these spots have received considerable amounts of coverage on YouTube, I'm not entirely convinced they will translate into increased bookings. Who wants to book a hotel room that's been covered in the foul crusty stank of hundreds or thousands of previous guests?

What do you think? Will these spots positively differentiate Extended Stay from the vast number of competing hotel chains or will this campaign go up in a cloud of methane fueled fire?

The Mortgage Meltdown and Marketing

I'm about to go to bed, so this'll be a short one. With the financial titans of Wall Street collapsing like flan in a cupboard (thank you Eddie Izzard), the Federal Government has decided to step in and bailout the vast majority of companies affected by the mortgage meltdown. Needless to say, these problems have far-reaching implications. In popular political parlance, meltdown related issues have reached beyond Wall Street and are affecting Main Street.

But what kind of effect does all of this have on the media and marketing industry? How has the shaky economy affected consumer trust in popular brands? How different is consumer spending from this same time last year? How can some businesses thrive in a recession? Etc, etc. The questions are plentiful and the good people of AdAge have all of the answers. In their continuing coverage of the economic meltdown, AdAge has compiled all of their stories into one section of their site. How wonderfully convenient. Check it out and educate yourself. Never forget, good marketers are informed marketers.

I'm a Mac, but I like PC's New Commercials

Hey everybody. Good to be back to the Experience.com Marketing Blog, my digital home away from home. A lot has happened since the last blogging cycle ended. I officially made the move to Cal-ee-for-nee-a, as our esteemed Governator pronounces it, and I am now gainfully employed in my first post-collegiate job. What's more, said job does not involve part-time employment at the local outlet mall or food establishment. Huzzah! Of course, this blog isn't all about me, only like 94.6 percent, so I'll fill in the details on my first impressions of Cali for a later post.

In the meantime, I'd like to share my impressions of Microsoft's new ad campaign. The spots, themed after the tagline "Life Without Walls", are a direct response to those increasingly smarmy "I'm a Mac" ads. Drawing on the testimony of some of the millions of PC users worldwide, with a handful of celebrities thrown in for good measure, the ads show that PCs are not necessarily the stuff of pocket protecting number crunchers.

Though I personally use a Mac, and honestly consider that they're superior computers, I'm glad to see Microsoft assert themselves in these ads. For too long, Apple has acted like that smug kid in the back of the class. You know the type, really smart, but he goofs off anyway to impress the girls. Sure, he's funny for a little while, but it doesn't take long for the shtick to wear off. So Microsoft doesn't make super intuitive products that are sleek in design and phenomenally productive. So what? People still use the things and stereotyping PC users as chubby out of touch losers was an arrogant move by Mac.

The best thing Mac can do to demonstrate their superiority is...well, demonstrate their superiority. Think about those simple iPhone commercials. The iPhone is all alone against a plain background. Simple pleasant narration explains all the cool features. The ad ends with a nice little flourish and the universally recognized Apple logo. Clean and effective. Those are the type of ads that Mac should stick to if they really want to win over PC users.