www.Olivestudio.com

Check out this great video Amy Krouse Rosenthal of whoisamy.com and MissionAmyKR.com
They set out to see what peoples reactions would be if money really did grow on trees.  The results are pretty interesting.

www.Olivestudio.com

Now before I go on and on about how amazingly cool this video and experience are, I should warn you that it was a co-production involving Google, so therefore you will need to download Google Chrome, but I do think the effort is worth it. ( You can get a sense of what happens through the video promo above).

Now this whole thing is even better knowing that the song, “We used to wait,” by Arcade Fire is really really good.  I think the interactive part is even better though. Called ”The Wilderness Downtown, what this video/movie basically does, is utilized Google Maps to make your address of choice part of the video.  By simply entering your address where you grew up, or for those of us who grew up in the country, the address where you currently live.

The video uses Google Maps to integrate your address into the streaming video, and there is even a part where you are encouraged to write a message to yourself as a child using the drawing function within the video.  I think this is the first of its kind and would suggest that if you have a few minutes on your hand, check it out!

www.Olivestudio.com

The Portland Timbers announced today that Joey Webber has been named the club’s new official mascot following the retirement of long-time team icon “Timber” Jim Serrill earlier this year. Webber has served as the team’s guest mascot since Timber Jim’s departure.

www.Olivestudio.com

Emerging from the rain forest of Vancouver Island in Canada are the futuristic designs known as Free Spirit Spheres. The “treehouses for adults” are handmade from local wood and suspended from the tree canopy. The spheres are recommended for meditation, photography, canopy research, leisure, game watching and other activities. Some are available for rental, and DIY kits are offered. There are separate bathroom spheres.

Read more:

www.bradenton.com

The YMCA is introducing a new brand strategy.

The marketing move aims to create more public awareness of all the services the nonprofit organization offers, officials say.

“Our three goals: youth development, healthy living and social responsibility are all things that we’ve always done,” said Sean Allison, president and chief executive officer of the Manatee County YMCA. “But we haven’t always been real effective in describing that.”

Read more: 

www.Olivestudio.com

Today kicks off that one event that some prepare for all year long….Burning Man 2010. 

Burning Man is an annual event held in the Black Rock Desert in northern Nevada, in the United States. The event starts on the Sunday before and ends on the day of the American Labor Day holiday. It takes its name from the ritual burning of a large wooden effigy on Saturday evening. The event is described by many participants as an experiment in community, radical self-expression, and radical self-reliance.

As quoted by the Burning Man website, “Trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind.”

We over her at Olive would love to hear about your favorite Burning Man experiences.  Sound Off in the comments section below!

www.Olivestudio.com

Imagine that you are a new immigrant arriving at Ellis Island for the first time after a long  journey across the Atlantic.  It is the early 1900′s and you have just left a country where the tallest structure you have ever seen is probably the church in your small village.  As you make the fifteen minute trek from Ellis Island to Battery Park in lower Manhattan, you are in awe of these amazing structures that just reach for the sky. 

This was a common occurrence in for many of the immigrants making their way to the “new world” here in the United States.  As they crossed over to the magnificent island called New York, these structures were pointed out by the names of the companies that were having them built.  “That is the Singer Building, there is the Chrysler Building, and over there is the Hearst Building.”

Companies in these days were expanding their empires, and battling it out for who could go the highest. These companies were not only building up due to lack of space, there were literally building their brand.  The brand with the tallest building would be the most recognized on the New York skyline.  Even today, when visitors arrive in New York City, they can point out buildings, based on nothing but brand recognition.

Social Media Today

Though social media marketing is rapidly advancing in terms of adoption and sophistication, many marketers and business executives still struggle with it. They wonder if their organizations are doing enough, if they are doing things right, even if they should be involved in social media at all. This confusion is partly due to some still-common misconceptions about social media marketing. As the goal of Social Media is Simpler Than You Think was to demystify social media marketing, this post will attempt to de-myth-ify it.

1. Social media is so easy we can hire an intern to do it. Because social media is fundamentally about conversations, the individual(s) behind your social media activities is often perceived as the public face of your company. This person is answering questions about your products and/or services, responding to or redirecting complaints, sharing interesting content, providing more information…you’ll probably want to be a bit careful about who gets this responsibility. ->

2. Social media marketing is really hard. True, there are techniques that work better than others, guidelines that are good to know, rules of etiquette to follow and common mistakes to avoid, but the general skills called for aren’t all that uncommon, and the specifics are teachable. It helps to be creative, curious, articulate, friendly and helpful. Okay, so not just anyone can do it, but it’s not rocket science either.

3. Social media is only for the young. Argh, no! On the consumer side, the largest cohort of Facebook’s user base is the 35-54 age group, and the fastest growing is the 55+ cohort. On the producer side, the most important attributes are interpersonal skills and industry knowledge. Age is irrelevant in social media usage, and life experience is a plus for social media marketers.

4. Social media is free. Um, no. While recent studies show that about half of marketers say that social media reduces their overall marketing costs, it is by no means without a price. The primary budget effect of social media marketing is to shift costs from media buying to labor. The tools of social media are (mostly) free, but the time, effort and expertise required to make social media marketing effective has real costs.

5. Since social media marketing is labor-intensive, we should offshore it. Ooh, not a good idea. While offshoring works well for tasks like IT consulting services and software application development, it tends to be less efficacious for market-facing activities. Thoughtful companies keep their SEO efforts local (to avoid link-spamming, for example) and after evaluating all of the costs, many are even moving call centers back onshore. And see myth #1 above.

6. Social media marketing success is all about rules and best practices. Not really. True, there are guidelines as to what works well (being sincere, helpful and knowledgeable) and what doesn’t (trying to use social media sites as one-way broadcasts of your marketing brochures), but the field is new enough that many of the “rules” are still being written. While there are some techniques that seem to work well and are worth replicating, and others that should clearly be avoided, there’s also a great deal of space for creativity in this rapidly expanding and evolving area.

7. Social media marketing has no rules. Now, just because there isn’t an established cookie-cutter approach to social media marketing success doesn’t mean there are no rules. Don’t be excessively self-promotional, don’t try to automate everything, be sincere, add value—there aren’t a lot of rules, but these are a few very important ones.

8. Social media marketing gets immediate results. Almost never. Sure, you may run across an example somewhere of this happening, just as you may hear about a couple who got married three weeks after they met. It can happen, but isn’t common and shouldn’t be expected. Social media is about building relationships and influence. It takes time, but the payback can be much more lasting than a typical “marketing campaign” as well.

9. Social media marketing is too risky. This fear is most common in the medical, financial services, and other regulated industries. And it’s certainly true that there are situations where a company has to be somewhat cautious about its social media participation and content (another reason to keep myths #1 and #5 in mind). By all means, be aware of your specific industry and regulatory environment and put necessary safeguards in place. But people in your marketplace—customers, prospects, analysts, journalists, shareholders and others—are talking about your company and/or industry across social media channels right now. The real risk is in ignoring those conversations.

10. Social media marketing is new. Not really. Certainly the tools are new: Twitter has only been around since 2007, Facebook since 2006, and even blogging has been popular for less than a decade. But social media marketing is fundamentally about participating in and influencing the direction of conversations about your industry and brand. Those practices are timeless, but social media has increased the velocity and magnitude of such conversations.

11. Social media marketing doesn’t apply to my business. There are isolated niches where this is true. For example, if you build weapons systems for the U.S. military, you not only don’t need social media marketing, it would probably be best to avoid it. And there may be a few other such situations. For virtually every other type of business however, someone, somewhere is discussing your brand, your industry or your competitors in social media. You’re missing out if you’re not listening and participating.

www.Olivestudio.com

                                VS.

For years now we have heard the term “retail therapy.”  The idea that buying things can make us happier, or at least help calm our unhappiness.  New studies are showing this may not be the case.  I was on my way to the store the other day when this segment came onto NPR.  Psychologists have been studying the effects of experiences on human happiness against the effects of purchasing material possesions.  This prompted me to think, “maybe I should shell out money for the Lady Gaga concert rather than buy that new pair of jeans?!”  This is exactly what I did!  Am I happier? The jury is still out.

Below borrowed  from NPR.org:

Are there a few presents under the tree that didn’t really make you jump for joy? Return them for cash and go to dinner. Psychologists say people report feeling happier when they spend their money on experiences rather than objects. Study author Ryan Howell, from San Francisco State University, explains the results and speculates on whether the findings extend to gift-giving. Click here to read the full story and listen.