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Taco Bell Creates Best Ad Campaign I’ve Seen In Awhile

March 31, 2014

Taco Bell Creates Best Ad Campaign I’ve Seen In Awhile

Chris Schweppe
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Misc., Mobile, Pay Per Click, Reputation Management, SEO, Social Media Marketing

People love drama. It’s one of the main things that attracts us to movies and TV. We love watching conflict. This Taco Bell advertisement does all this in their latest ad campaign.

When watching the commercial, I’m first thinking how clever Taco Bell was at finding people named Ronald McDonald. Then I wondered if it was even legal to do what they were doing, copyright speaking. Then I wondered if these people’s real names were actually Ronald McDonald. Then I saw McDonald’s response on Twitter and thought, wow, what a lazy response. There is for sure 3 big lessons to be learned here.

First off, what is Taco Bell’s purpose in this ad campaign? It’s to build awareness that they now have a breakfast menu. That’s it. They want people to know. With this ad campaign, they’ve done that. One of the best ways to attract attention is to create controversy and that’s what they’ve done targeting McDonald’s.

Second, McDonald’s had a chance to leach attention off of Taco Bell’s ad dollars. They had a chance to create awareness for something new they were doing. Maybe even to say their breakfast menu was better and that the Egg McMuffin is famous or something. But all McDonald’s could muster was, “Ronald still prefers McDonald’s.” What a wasted opportunity. It’s like they were either lazy or just flat out caught off guard.

But lastly, the big lesson here for small business is that the number one goal of advertising is to create awareness. But a close second, is that you want to leave a positive impression with your targeted audience. My main point is that lots of ad dollars and blanket advertising and big audience reach numbers are nice, but there is definitely a value in ad creative as we’ve seen with Taco Bell.

When creative ad messaging can be advertised in big numbers, there’s a chance to hit a real home run.

Will Advertising Be Acceptable On Wearables Like Smart Watches?

March 25, 2014

Will Advertising Be Acceptable On Wearables Like Smart Watches?

With internet connected devices that we can wear like smart watches, us marketers are entering into new territory. The knee jerk reaction is you think “oh cool, another device people use to connect to the internet. Increases ad inventory. Expands reach. Possibly drives down cost. Cool deal.” But how accepting will people be of advertising on devices like smart watches?

When the iphone was first introduced, some people thought ads on consumer’s cell phones was a ridiculous idea and would never fly. Now, it’s a pretty normal thing. My prediction is that because there’s so much money involved, advertisers will figure out a subtle way to advertise that is palatable to the public.

Study Says Majority Of People’s Attention On Smartphone, TV Just Background Noise

March 23, 2014

Study Says Majority Of People’s Attention On Smartphone, TV Just Background Noise

I can completely believe this study. For instance, it’s very common for my wife to be sitting on the couch watching YouTube on her phone, while the TV is on. But she’s not paying attention to the TV. Meanwhile, I’m in the home office and my attention primary on my computer. And from time to time I’ll glance at the TV. Then fast forward through the commercials. Just another piece of evidence confirming that the TV advertising business is on a slow decline. And the internet advertising business is growing.

US Senator Trying to Ban .sucks GTL Domains

March 23, 2014

US Senator Trying to Ban .sucks GTL Domains

If you haven’t heard, ICANN, the organization which is in charge of domain related stuff, has been creating what they call generic top level domains. So in other words, you can now buy domain names like customwave.cool or customwave.successful or customwave.online.

However, there’s a few GTL domains that have people wary and one of them is .sucks. Yes, lol as of now, you can buy customwave.sucks. So West Virginia’s senator Jay Rockefeller is out to try and ban it saying that there will be online trolls using the .sucks domains to shake down businesses. Building websites saying ___ company sucks and unless the business pays up, it’s going to remain up.

I think the intention is noble, but the senator won’t be successful in the long run. The internet is not big on censorship and even when it tries to be, there’s too many workarounds.

My best advice is for small businesses to be proactive in protecting their reputations and asking customers to leave positive reviews to combat negative reviews and .sucks websites and others like it.

I Think People Underestimate How Many People Are On The Internet

March 23, 2014

I Think People Underestimate How Many People Are On The Internet

Chris Schweppe
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Email Marketing, Misc., Mobile, Pay Per Click, Reputation Management, SEO, Shopping Carts, Social Media Marketing

What I’m about to say is more theory on my part than actual fact. I think when people think of reaching an enormous amount of people, they think of TV.

I’m just here to share how many people have been on entertainment related websites in January 2014. Nielsen says that the number is 167 million people in the United States. YouTube alone got a little over 110 million people in that one month with each person averaging 12 visits throughout the month.

Overall, there were 198 million Americans online in January 2014. Average time each person spent online throughout the month? 29 hours and 43 minutes.

Apps Take Up 90% Of Internet Time On Smartphones, Browsers Take Up 10% On Smartphones

March 23, 2014

Apps Take Up 90% Of Internet Time On Smartphones, Browsers Take Up 10% On Smartphones

To me, this report from Nielsen shows that people might know what the internet is. They might know that their cell phones now connect to the internet. They definitely know what Google is. They’ve figured out how to download apps on their cell phone. But this report shows people still aren’t comfortable navigating the internet in the regular mobile browsers. Like using the url aka, address bar.

So what does this mean for marketers and small businesses? With the majority of internet use shifting from regular computers to mobile devices and 90% of these people using apps to navigate the internet on their mobile device, every small business should have their own mobile app. The last thing you should want is for someone wanting to find your phone # or other info on your website, but that user decides not to look it up because you don’t have an app where they can easily access the content.

YouTube Is Developing A New Version For Kids Under 10

March 19, 2014

YouTube Is Developing A New Version For Kids Under 10

One of the dilemmas parents face letting their kids use YouTube is that they can easily access content that’s not suited for them. YouTube has now come up with the brilliant (no sarcasm) idea to make a separate version of their website for kids 10 years and under. And they would also be encouraging content creators for content that fits the age group. Makes total sense because a lot of parents I know won’t let their kids go on YouTube. Now that could change. We all know that the kids movies make boku bucks at movie theaters. So kids content on YouTube could do just as well. For marketing, it presents a great opportunity to reach this age group on a massive scale.

Google Finally Unveils “Smart Watches” That Connect To Internet

March 19, 2014

Google Finally Unveils “Smart Watches” That Connect To Internet

Chris Schweppe
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Email Marketing, Misc., Mobile, Pay Per Click, Reputation Management, SEO, Shopping Carts, Social Media Marketing, Web Design

They’re finally here!! Google finally has unveiled it’s much anticipated “smart watch”. Watches that little display screens that act like mini computers. Even smaller than cell phones! We’ve already seen how much smart phones have taken off. So it’d be a wise assumption that the US consumers will adopt the watches in the same way. So for us marketers, making sure our websites are “smart watch” compatible and show up properly on watches will become a new part of the job description. To me, the more devices there are out there that connect to the internet, the more website traffic and online marketing opportunities there will be : )

Content Gets You On Google’s 1st Page In Organic Section

March 19, 2014

Content Gets You On Google’s 1st Page In Organic Section

The search engine optimization (seo) people are funny. Years ago, I decided to stop being one of the SEO people that look for shortcuts to get on Google organically. I decided that if anyone was going to pay Customwave for SEO, we would focus on content. Because throughout all the years of existence, Google has always and will continue to always reward websites with superior content. But there are still people looking for flaws in Google’s algorithm to give them a shortcut. It’s a teachable moment because i think it says something about society in general. A lot of people would rather spend a whole bunch of money going from temporary shortcut to temporary shortcut having mixed results. Rather than putting out hard work that is tried and true that produces way better results. Usually the most successful people in business are those that work the hardest. Not those that are always looking for ways to work less.