With anything we write one of the goals is to get people’s attention, headlines are intended to do this in a newspaper. By avoiding what we call editorializing, that’s sharing one’s opinion beyond being objective and credible, writers and editors find catchy ways to get readers’ attention to read stories, even if it’s only the first few sentences of the story, or the lead. Scan the newspaper and see what, by headline alone, catches your attention. By the same token, when writing headlines for your blog posts try to make them catch, you have to think that with the millions of pieces of information available on the Web, if you get your content in front of a potential reader the title or headline is where conversion takes place. Granted, this takes some practice but will ultimately be one major way to get a good strong following from more distant readers (people who may not know you and simply come across or stumble onto your blog).

I was looking at Engadget the other day and this headline just jumped off the page at me,

What a headline, he got the gist of the story across, threw his twist on the story to get my attention and it worked. Compare this with “My thoughts for today” and unless I know you I probably won’t click on your blog to read about your thoughts.

My Two Cents: Although I think that user-generated content is what makes the Web great, I also think we can do a better job overall. Not only will writing more thought-provoking, catchier headlines cast a better light on us the writers, but it could also potentially drive traffic to our site.

Anyway, Seth makes some great points on achieving the top in anything, whether our professional lives or businesses, or whatever, the Dip is what separates the achievers from the quitters–let me say that quitting isn’t that bad, Seth explains all about that too.

My Two Cents: Seth made a great presentation and my guess is that his book is a deeper journey through his concepts and ideas, it would be beneficial to read the book, plus it’s a small book, in case you were concerned it was too big.

Google offers personalization and various services like Gmail, Google Apps, in the end, they are collecting information about you in return for these services. In this MediaPost article Google’s translation service is another in their line of products that don’t offer any “revenue streams.”

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but the fast food restaurants have done some fiddling with the sizes of meals. Carls Jr. got me to buy a larger meal when I really didn’t need it, all because of the words they used to define the sizes.

Let me explain. Some food joints will have actual samples of the drink sizes so you can see what you’re getting, Carls Jr. didn’t have this. They also didn’t list their “regular” size, leaving me to choose between “medium” and “large”(I think it was large). so naturally, without asking what the regular size was and assuming that I didn’t want a “small” size, which typically comes before “medium,” I told the lady I wanted a “medium” -sized meal. What I actually got I would define at least as a “large” meal.

This reminds me of a company that advertised using “fresh steam” to clean their bottles before filling them with a drink. What is “fresh steam”? I couldn’t tell you, steam is usually fresh–granted I’m not a scientist.

My Two Cents: If you’re a marketer, it will benefit you to understand the psychology of words; if you’re a consumer, caveat emptor!

Photo Courtesy of ramecker

My Two Cents: I wrote this on my iBook.

What I’d like to do is present advertisements and commercials representing various brands and not only post a copy of the ad/commercial but also rate it based on a couple of factors and rate each factor on a scale of one to five, one being bad and five being exceptional.

1. Creativity: although not always necessary, it is definitely a plus and helps attract customers to your brand.

2. Uniqueness: if you’re doing the same thing as the other guys how are you establishing your brand? Uniqueness can definitely go along with creativity.

3. Message: Ads are meant to communicate something to the audience, maybe not everyone is the audience, but it should communicate some sort of discernible message.

4. Intangibles: Sometimes ads just have something about them call it pathos, or whatever, but sometimes ads just have a je ne sei quoi about them.

5. Overall experience: This is probably the most subjective, because it is, after all, my experience. I may not get the message or think it is creative, but all of it comes together to represent a final product that will effect consumers. In other words, consumers will have an experience with your ad.

This week I want to present the first ad I’ve come across for this creative marketing series and it’s Jeep’s series of bug ads. There are various versions, both in print and TV format, for anyone who isn’t familiar with the ads here is one:

(photo courtesy of MediaPost.com)

Creativity: 5

Uniqueness: 4

Message: 2 (I think the message is better expressed in the television format)
Intangibles: 3

Overall Experience: 2 (It’s a print ad!)
Admeter score: 3.2

My Two Cents: A good concept for the ad, the T.V. version is better (here, here and here, and the print version that hung in Time Square is even better, see that here.

This struck me recently as I though about the “subliminal” power universities seem to have over their alumni. I went to a good university and consequently spent money on my way to receiving my degree. Now, there are those who went to universities and spent more than $100,000 on their education, so what possesses us to go back to the alumni shop and buy a golf shirt for $70??!! The answer: affiliation, we feel a connection to our alma mater, it shows a bond between us and other alumni or fans, and in some ways it is part of who we are–i.e., you don’t drop the fact that you’re a Harvard grad without that fact saying something about the person you are.

My Two Cents: The successful communicator or marketer will find a way to connect with that sense of belonging–that need to be included–that we humans feel. Now, that’s not to say that we all want to be part of the Kleenex club, but I think you get the picture. Have you created a campaign or strategy as part of a campaign that relied on the principle of affiliation?

My Two Cents: I think this is a good idea. Although I have to wonder if this is a conspiracy with the USB hub manufacturers to sell more product. I need four of these little suckers to power my camera–I only have two USB ports on my laptop! Anyways, I think that innovation is good and sometimes funny. In the end, although innovation may leave a long and winding R&D trail, it usually produces something worthwhile. Keep pushing the envelope, I’ve yet to see the shelves at Circuit City run out of space.