Over the years, savvy marketers have systematically discovered and created not only the greatest products to sell, but precisely how to package and push them upon the world.  No matter the negatives, or how unnecessary a certain product or service is, corporations have found a way to portray themselves and their products as indispensable.  To reject those products and services is to reject happiness, or so the consumer should believe.  Over the years there have been some extreme standouts in this advertising game, most notably the following fifteen:
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In this day and age, someone is always trying to sell you something.  Look around yourself right now; it’s incredibly unlikely there is not an advertisement within arm’s reach. In such a crowded market, it’s no wonder advertisers have tended toward bolder messages and devices in an attempt to break through the average American’s consumption haze.  Then there are those who see “bold” and think “license to be offensive, patronizing, and hopelessly insane”.   
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For many of us that get bombarded on an annual basis with the typical 6 inch, thick, yellow paged book from yester-year and do not feel comfortable with tossing it in the trash for fear getting attacked by many trees.

Here is a list of the Top 10 uses for the books:

10. Use many of them together as building blocks to for an incredible play house;

9.   Ideal book to place on top of head and walking for practicing balance and poise;

8.   Door Stop;

7.   Conduct annual Yellow Page Book throwing contest;

6.   Excellent mini step ladders for the hard to reach places around your house or business;

5.   Ideal for making several hundred paper airplanes;

4.   Excellent seat for those who are vertically challenged;

3.   Use as cones for out of bounds and the end zone during your next pick up game of football;

2.   Great wheel/tire chuck for under vehicles and trailers to prevent movement while parked;

1.   Perfect stand to place your desktop or notebook on for the correct height to conduct your Google searches.

Not to mention if the Google Gods caught you using such an antiquated instrument of Search….. you may have an algorithm change done to you

I received in the mail one of the most remarkable direct mail pieces ever (Photo thanks to BruceClay.com – Virginia Nussey talked about it here) via FedEx this week. I opened the package and pulled out a very professional package of chocolate covered grasshoppers.

The first thing I said to myself was, “Are these SERIOUSLY chocolate covered grasshoppers?”

And then I read in fine print at the bottom of the package:

*Yes, these are real grasshoppers. They are even approved by the FDA of Thailand.

Brilliant. I didn’t have any idea what it was… but that alone made me look into it further.

A tag attached to the grasshoppers said, “Entrepreneurs can change the world. Join the movement now!”

Now I’m intrigued.

So, I went to their site and it looks like they are compiling entrepreneurs together and offering some discounts on services… but in the end, they are promoting telecommunication services of some type.

Here’s the lesson… To start something viral… it needs to be worthy of being viral. Business owners talk to us everyday about how they want to do these viral campaigns, but they often want to do things so lame, that nobody really cares. So, take a lesson from the grasshopper guys (and possibly gals, too)… and do something worth talking about in your next viral marketing campaign.

Oh… I brought the package home and had my kids eat them. That’s what the video above’s all about. I know it’s a bit long… sorry.

The topic of this blog is putting a pricetag on frustration…and speaking of frustration, I’m preparing a sure to be hilarious recap of web usability problems with TNT.com. (Note to TNT- fire all of your web people.)

In the meantime, I found something online that I felt was very interesting.  Tonight I was searching for a ‘Microsoft Wireless Mouse’ on Amazon and came across something I had never heard of before.  Look at these 2 Amazon links and tell me if you can spot the difference.

Link1

Link 2

Could you spot the difference? Congratulations!  It’s not like it was right in the product headline or anything.  For those that missed it, Amazon is selling the EXACT SAME mouse for about 4 dollars more because it is in, what they call, “Amazon Frustration-Free™ Packaging”.

I hate dealing with those plastic death traps they put around gadgets as much as anyone else, but is it worth a $4 bump in price? What would I be willing to pay in any given situation to get the same thing with less frustration? $10 more for shoes you don’t have to tie (oh wait, that’s why I wear velcro). $100 more for a computer that never crashes? I’d pay it (and as I type this on my iMac I realize I did exactly that…except, more than a hundred dollars extra…).

My overspending aside, the point is, your lack of frustration is worth something. It’s just hard to figure out exactly how much it’s worth. In any given situation when you buy something, I wonder how much extra you would pay for better service, a better experience, an easier delivery method, etc.  How much money are companies losing because they aren’t willing to add that little touch to make their extra service worthwhile and “frustration-free”?

But this is starting to get deep.  In this case, for $4 extra dollars, I’d rather buy a sweet pair of scissors and just go to town on that plastic packaging.

Because in the end, I’d then have a wireless mouse and a cool pair of scissors to do with as I pleased. Win-win.

I was sitting down tonight getting ready to do some press release marketing for a customer and I realized that I had an issue. My selfish intention of the press release to was to promote the business and hopefully create some traffic to the site and therefore leads.

The problem with this approach, if you’re not familiar with press releases and their intention, is that simply “promoting” a business with ad copy disguised in a press release isn’t exactly proper etiquite. It can also get you banned from the better press sites if you’re found doing it often.

After doing some research online and reading many other’s opinions, I came to the conclusion that if you want to do a true PR campaign, then you can’t just always make stuff up… your company should truly remain news worthy. If this seems like to much of a hassle, or if you’re an affiliate marketer or something where you’re strickly generating leads, then the opening of your business may be the only news worthy thing you ever do… but I wouldn’t recommend that as a long term business strategy.

Why are press releases important?

I didn’t always believe in press releases, but have found many reasons why it is not only important, but in many cases imperative.

1.

Googling your name in the search engines.

Google (and the other engines that wish they were google) knows that content that is on press release sites has been already seen by a human and the press release wire site. Therefore, it gives it a bit more credibility. Write a press release per week for three weeks with your name in the title of the press release and watch what happens within days when you google your name. The releases will kick many of the existing pages right out of the results.

2.

Industry site pick ups

We wrote this press release on February 19, 2008 and because the release had two specific words in it, it ended up getting picked up by a well known mortgage industry site the next day. Because of that pick up, we received many inquiries and solidified an ongoing relationship with an exciting start up that has an ongoing need for internet marketing.

3.

Media Attention

There will be times that you will be writing about a topic and a reporter will be researching that topic at about the same time. If that’s the case, there is a great chance that your release will get noticed. If it does, you may get a call from the reporter, or they may quote from your release directory. Either way… more traffic.

4.

Branding

Press releases and articles are two of the only ways to get more indexed search results under when people search for you name. The engines are only going to reference so many pages from your site. But, you can build up a list of press releases and then build links to those releases. This allows you to pick and choose what you want people to see when they search your company name if done properly.

5.

Link Building

Let ‘s not forget about one of the most important things… building links. Each press release you write will end up getting posted on multiple sites. Each one of these sites will link back to your site, if you do the resources box properly (most, anyway… some don’t allow the resources box).

So, what do you write about? Well, I’m going to get back to that next time… subscribe to my feed and you’ll be updated when I post 14 and a half Killer Press Release Ideas For Your Site!

So, if you haven’t heard… debatably the most important thing to do with your web presence is to get people to link to you! However, so many people are missing out on so much because they fail to do just that. They are often so self promotional that they lack providing helpful or viral information to anyone. I received an email today that included some very uniquely designed bus ads, bags, etc. Let these photos be inspiration to you when developing your businesses online marketing strategy.