Archive for March, 2010

Cell phone users come in different flavors, like the phones they use, suggests market research firm Experian Simmons in its new Mobile Consumer Segmentation study. The study, which says 87% of Americans have mobile phones, delineates five different classes of mobile users:

• “Mobirati,” 19% of mobile phone owners, are also the first generation to have grown up with mobile phones.

• “Social Connectors”, 22% of mobile phone owners are people for whom the mobile phone is essentially a social lubricant, and for whom texting is just as important as a voice call.

• “Pragmatic Adopters” constitute 22% of cell users, and are just getting beyond using mobile phones solely for voice calls. They say that if service quality is disappointing, they will switch to another provider. They also say once they find one they like, they will stick with it.

• “Mobile Professionals,” about 17% use smartphones and haven’t got a problem with using more complex phones and their variegated features. Experian Simmons says they actually feel that extra features are more important than calling, and are more likely to switch to service providers offering the latest technology.

• “Basic Planners,” about one-fifth of users, are interested in basic mobile packages only, and only use cell phones in emergencies, are confused by plans and don’t use other features.

Keds recently launched a new interactive website, TheOriginalSneaker.com to celebrate their 94-year history and get today’s consumer to engage with their brand. Not only does the site provide daily facts from previous decades marking iconic moments that happened on the current day, it also acts as a forum for consumers to design and buy/sell their own unique Keds Sneakers. In the Keds Collective you can upload your own artwork or select template designs to to transform Keds’ blank canvas into an original fashion statement. You can also purchase kicks that were designed by other consumers, made possible through a partnership with Zazzle, where the original designer gets a percentage of the profits.

Check out the full story from psfk.com or start designing your own shoes at the Keds Collective

Ever dream of surfing the crystal blue waters of Fiji while simultaneously building your resume?! Old Spice has you covered!

Old Sprice is searching for 2 adventure seeking guys for the ultimate internship experience, in which the chosen candidates will be assigned to surf and swim the cool waves of Fiji or ski the white powder snow on the Matterhorn in Switzerland! Candidates will compete against one another in various challenges that embody the essence of scents and document their experience via daily blog postings and social media updates.

A quick look at some of the challenges lined up:

That Bites – Participate in the Aqua-Trek Shark Encounter (with a certified guide), take a photo of the largest shark that makes you sweat and make sure your water-proof Old Spice Fiji is in the shot.

Sound Like a Local - Travel on the highest Cable Car in Europe to the highest point of the Matterhorn (Klein Matterhorn) and yodel the Old Spice Whistle. On the way down, collect a random group and teach everyone in the Cable Car the Old Spice Whistle yodel and lead them in a round – be sure to capture video of your new chorus and to snap a photo with everyone holding the OS Matterhorn product in hand.

Tell Old Spice what your ideal adventure smells like at oldspiceadventure.com for a chance to win!

Source: Thrillist

On Saturday, March 27, 2010 at 8:30 p.m. local time, Earth Hour will once again cascade around the globe, from New Zealand to Hawaii. Hundreds of millions of people, organizations, corporations and governments around the world will come together to make a bold statement about their concern for climate change by doing something quite simple—turning off their lights for one hour.

Last year iconic landmarks from around the world went dark, including The Vegas Strip, Empire State Building, Sydney’s Opera House and may more.

Earth Hour is sponsored by the World Wildlife Foundation. To learn more about Earth Hour, visit myearthhour.org

Will you participate???

A Seattle man has set a Guinness World Record for fastest text message using the finger-sliding Swype technology available on Samsung Mobile phones.

Franklin Page, a recent employee of Swype, typed Guinness’s official phrase for text records — “The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality, they seldom attack a human” — in 35.54 seconds. The record was verified by a Guinness adjudicator.

Source: Marketing Daily

While it may be hard to believe, the origins of the “@” symbol go far beyond the use in online communication it’s become famous for in the past 10 years. And now, the Museum of Modern Art has declared it a work of art. The symbol was added to the American Underwood typewriter in the late 19th century, but its origins date back to as early as the sixth or seventh century. In 1963, “@” was first defined as an abbreviation for the word “at,” or “at the rate of” for use in accounting practices. It was used in the first email — in 1971 by electrical engineer Ray Tomlinson — partially because of its “at” connotation, and also because, according to MoMA, “it was already there, on the keyboard, and nobody ever used it.”

“Without any need to redesign keyboards or discard old ones, Tomlinson gave the @ symbol a completely new function that is nonetheless in keeping with its origins, with its penchant for building relationships between entities and establishing links based on objective and measurable rules — a characteristic echoed by the function @ now embodies in computer programming language.

Lately, the “@” symbol has taken on even more significance in our culture and is continually adopted by media and consumers as a communication tool. Interesting that it is an “acquisition” since “@” is inherently free….

Source: GeekSugar.com

Anyone else notice Lady Gaga’s most recent video, Telephone featuring Beyonce, was littered with product placements?  Debuting last Thursday, the video has already garnered millions of views among fans and is making waves around online communities not for the nudity or girl-on-girl action, but because of all the products that made the cut. Everything from Diet Coke cans used as curlers in her hair to Virgin Mobile cellphones in her hands and Miracle Whip used to make poison sandwiches were integrated into the 9 minute long video. According to Advertising Age, some of these product placements were paid for and others were free. So, will Lady Gaga’s endorsements affect her teen and twenty-something fans’ opinions of these brands? You be the judge.

Check out the video and the full article at Adage.com

New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has voted to require all of the city’s restaurants to post letter grades reflecting each establishment’s cleanliness.

Letter grades have been used in Los Angeles County restaurants for the past 11 years. This measure has been credited with reducing the number of hospitalizations due to food-borne illness in the region, according to the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI).

CSPI, which has been lobbying cities and state legislatures to adopt such measures, lauded NYC’s move. In 2008, the organization’s review of 539 restaurant inspections in 20 cities found that two-thirds of restaurants had “critical” food safety violations.

Source: Marketing Daily

We’re proud to announce some exciting news so big that ginormous doesn’t even begin to describe it—so honkin’ large that it’s… well… HUMONGO!  Yesterday, we officially acquired the insanely talented (or talentedly insane?) digital creative agency formerly known as Plaid.  Powered by Source Marketing, Plaid has transformed from the greatest agency in all of the land, to Humongo, the UBER greatest agency in all of the land.

Humongo, who has been sprinkling their digital wonderness upon impressive brands like Marc Ecko, Segway, AFLAC, Virgin Records, and Timex for over a decade, brings web-blazing social and creative mastery to the party.  Together with our “Right Now” marketing approach that delivers immediate impact in the marketplace to achieve client objectives, we’ve formed a union so perfect, so magical, that it’s almost like a fairy tail, except without any princesses. Stay tuned for more awesomeness to be announced in the next few months. In the meantime, if you could use a little humongo, visit humongoagency.com

Check out what Humongo and other social media hot shots have to say about all this @ http://www.brandflakesforbreakfast.com/2010/03/meet-humongo.html

Don’t miss out on a second of marketing greatness, become an fan of Source Marketing @ http://www.facebook.com/SourceMarketing and Humongo @ http://www.facebook.com/Humongoon on facebook and follow Source Marketing @ http://twitter.com/sourceMarketing and Humongo @ http://twitter.com/humongoagency on twitter.

The app is called Everyday looper and not going to lie, it is pretty cool. The kid in the video is speaking/singing in French but you will get the overall idea of how to use it…

Everyday Looper

Source: youtube.com