What I think you shouldn’t have missed last week…

It’s been a rich week in the online world in what usefull business, PR and Marketing tips are involved. Here are a few must reads for you to kick start the week with:

Lip-sticking blog’s guest writer Chloe Spencer explains Why Teens Are Addicted to Facebook.

A scandal raising once again well known issues – is the media biased? how far should you go when a journalist has published something partially true about yourself? are journalists in the business of half-truths? Oracle CEO to Fortune Reporter: ‘Hey Jerk…your job is telling half-truths’ via PR Newswire. Continue reading

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Guest post by Ben Johnson

Have you created a logo design for your business? If not, then you have got to get one. Why? Well, because your logo design gives your business a face. If you create a good looking logo, then your business will look really good. If you create a low quality design, then you will mess up the image of your company. So, it’s your logo design that can either mess up your business image completely or give it a dazzling identity.

To give a good-looking face to your business, you need to create an attractive logo. Once you create a dazzling identity, you will be able to win the trust of your market. How? Remember, your market won’t be able to meet you personally or see you physically – They will only see your logo and try to determine how reliable you are.

So, if your business has a pretty face (logo), you will create a pretty good impression.

Now…To give your business a dazzling identity with a top quality logo design, there are several elements you need to take into consideration to make it a success. Let’s discuss them: Continue reading

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Yes, lots of Coca-Cola going on in movies and series, as well as drinks, fashion brands and anything you’d ever think of. I am sure you all remember the Bridget Jones cheering on a huge screen. Or the Apple computers in Zoolander. But does product placement still work for popular movies and TV series?

I have to say I’ve started to overlook a lot of it. From clothes, to what they’re drinking or some of the gadgets they’re using. Then again, it also depends on how much the brand is shown off! If someone types behind a laptop for over 3 minutes, I might notice the brand. Or if you keep showing the computer game box each time you show the kid’s room, I might see it’s Heroes V Especially if I was a fan of Heroes III and IV

But other than that, do you buy something just because it’s shown on a TV screen but not during advertisement breaks? Is it a more effective advertising method? I mean, really, would you switch to the Head & Shoulders shampoo just because it was used to kill aliens in a rather silly movie?

I for one think it happens as it happens to all advertising: we learn to ignore it and it’s just wasted money. Are there any successful campaigns? Do you know of any and have you ever bought something just because you saw it in a movie?

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I have always been intrigued by the relationship Romanians have had with their car brand, Dacia. It is the only brand that still exists and that did not disappear after the Revolution that put an end to communism. But the way we’ve seen the brand, the way we’ve related to it or chosen to ignore it, makes for a very interesting story.

Dacias were not the best of cars during the communist period.  But they were one of the few types of cars you could actually get. Long lists and long waits came before any car purchase. And when I say long wait, I mean years. But then again, that gave you time to raise the money for it. The design was outdated, there weren’t that many options to choose from, and some relatives told me some now funny stories about how they prayed for their car to arrive with most of the parts on it.

After the Revolution, we finally had choices. And we went for them. Foreign cars, used at first, brought from nearby countries, Germany being the leading supplier. I grew up with high-school friends that made a business out of driving to Germany in one car and returning in three. They would work on them for a while, then resell them for some extra cash.

Old school Dacia, Sandero and Duster

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2009 has been a year full of changes, adjustments to new circumstances, learning new tricks, returning to the basics and learning something new almost every day. It’s been a wonderful and hard year at the same time, and frankly I have no idea when it has actually reached its finish line. It seems that only yesterday I was taking Robert Hurzek’s challenge to share what I had learned from 2008…

Now that we’re in mid-December, I am once again responding to Robert’s challenge to go through this years’ posts and pick what I believe to be the highlights of each month of this challenging yet always surprising year.
January – Investing in relationships always has excellent ROI

This very post has been a tribute to all the wonderful relationships I have built through my blog. The friends I’ve made, the new things I’ve learned, the support I’ve always counted on, it’s all worth sharing and cherishing.

February – 5 Ways to Make Sure You Never Get to the Second Meeting

In a year with a down-turning economy, everyone kept chasing new business. And some chose worse methods than others, making sure their efforts were in vain. Here was one of the worst examples of a business meeting from 2009. Read, learn and never act like this! Continue reading

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