Sidewalk Illusions by Artist Julian Beever

These are amazing pictures! Julian Beever is a English chalk artist. Julian has been chalk drawings on pavement since the mid-90s. The technical term is trompe-l’oeil drawings. To get the illusion he uses a technique called anamorphosis. If one uses this technique you can get the illusion of the third dimension if viewed at the correct angle. He also paints murals for companies, replicas of classic paintings, and collages. The amazing part of these painting I think is the fact that they only take one day to create. Many times these chalk paintings are gone the next day. Beever is currently based in Belgium. Just yesterday I was talking about viral marketing. A company hiring Julian Beever to do a chalk painting in the middle of the city what could be more viral than that?

Photo of Julian Beever:

Like Julian Beever on FaceBook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Julian-Beever/104020139635674?sk=wiki

In 2010 Beever actually released a book of chalk art called, Pavement Chalk Artist. The book shows all his work from around the globe.

See some of Julian Beever’s more famous work below:

Watch his YouTube video here:

BMW Brings Crop Circles to China in “UN1QUE For One” Campaign

This summer BMW brought crop circles to China launching a viral campaign to their ‘Unique For One’ range. BMW launched three viral campaigns relating to the crop circle, UFO theme. BMW released fake photos, eye witness stories about an alien crop circle, and even a fake news report. The campaign lasts through December and in the final stages of this viral ad campaign BMW will invite Chinese to join the BMW 1 Series driver challenge event. Two people will win the opportunity to drive a BMW for a year. Why not give away the cars BMW?

According to the BMW Blog, “Reports of a mysterious pattern in the Gobi Desert in China showed up on the Internet on August 17th. Shortly after, the Chinese media, including magazines, newspapers and state TV stations, reported on the strange phenomenon, some of them even mentioning UFOs. “  BMW waited a whole week until they said it was part of their viral marketing campaign.

The original posting of the photos has now been forwarded over 46,500 times and tallied over 18,000 comments. A major news portal in China, Sina, reported that the possible “UFO” was nothing more than a BMW marketing campaign called “UN1QUE For One.”  On this one report alone there were 300,000 reactions to the story.

I believe viral marketing campaigns are the most effective form of marketing in new media. Viral campaigns that generate free publicity through news, magazines, newspapers, Twitter, etc.

How Vegas Does Marketing Right!

I just got back from the Consumer Electronic Show and I was thinking on the plane how Las Vegas restaurants, shops, casinos, and even how conventions like CES market themselves. I think in a lot of ways Las Vegas business’ do marketing better than anyone else. Take for example this e-mail from Wynn I just received. It’s definitely eye catching and makes you want to click through. When I think of Las Vegas and marketing I think of classy (Not talking about the product here), appeals to emotions, and always provocative.  It’s about selling a version of reality you can’t get anywhere else. Think about it and apply it to your business!

What My Trip to “Twilight” Forks WA Taught Me about Marketing

If you don’t already know Forks is a small town in Clallam County, Washington. It is the backdrop for the Twilight books and movies. The cities economy before Stephenie Meyer’s, Twilight series was sustained by the timber industry and Clallam Bay Correctional Center. Thanks to the Twilight books and movies it’s clear that Forks, WA has added Twilight to the industries that support its residents. Forks is booming thanks to Twilight tourism.

My girlfriend and I where visiting her relatives up in Forks. No, sorry to disappoint I’m not a huge Twilight fan. I wasn’t searching for Edward and Bella. Upon first entering the town of Forks I was shocked to see how many business’ are selling Twilight memorabilia and/or tying the Twilight name into their business. There are shops called “Dazzled by Twilight,” “Native Art Twilight,” and many more. Teenagers are walking the streets with shopping bags in their hands taking pictures as if the stories of Twilight actually took place in this small town. Twilight fans drive to all the attractions described in the book including Minnie Peterson road. Day in and day out fans drive up this road and turn around.

My marketing takeaway from visiting “Twilight” Forks WA is that opportunities come virtually out of thin air. This town was Washington’s best kept secret before Twilight. Forks relied off the timber industry and the Correctional Center. Now because of something as trivial as a series of teen books and movies this once sleeping town has turned into a tourism Mecca. Business owners according to my girlfriend’s relatives in Forks are raking in the profits. Things don’t stay stagnant. If you prepare for opportunities to come your way eventually one will. Not every opportunity is predictable.  It’s up to you to capitalize on those unpredictable opportunities that come your way. As cheesy as it sounds to capitalize off Twilight many business owners in the town of Forks have went from getting by to getting wealthy beyond belief.

This blog is both about saving money and making money. Today I’m going to show you how to save money by not believing everything companies tell you. I have proof that Folgers Coffee is trying to deceive you into thinking their new packaging contains more coffee, but it doesn’t. It actually contains less. Let me explain.

I have pictures of coffee packaging from Costco I bought about 2 years ago. Another picture is coffee packaging bought yesterday. Containers are both the same size, but new packaging contains 48 oz. as opposed to 52 oz. contained in the old packaging. The deceptive aspect of this is Folgers claims on the new packaging I bought at Costco yesterday that it makes 380 6 oz. cups of coffee. On the old larger 52 oz. packaging Folders claims that coffee will make 360 6 oz. cups.

How does a container containing less coffee make more coffee??? Very good question. Either Folgers is being dishonest or they know something that I don’t.

New packaging says makes 380 6 oz. cups

Old packaging says makes less at 360, even though it contains more coffee

New packaging 48 oz.

Old packaging 52 oz.

Side-by-side comparison

Every successful blogger becomes a marketer soon after he’s had practice promoting the first product he created online… his blog! This is how it starts for some of us who got into blogging first before we tried online selling by affiliate marketing or information product creation. When you start promoting your blog, you will learn about the many tools you can use to look for keywords, do search engine optimization, build traffic, propagate links, network with others and establish your brand.

While it’s true that there are a lot of good tools out there for bloggers to use for free, some are better than most, and some are more difficult to understand than others.  Each program or software has its own unique advantages, but using them all at once to promote your website can get tedious and exhausting. Here are three tips on how to promote your blog using the many resources you will find online without losing your focus.

Tip #1: Don’t join something immediately just because everyone else is.

Keep your initial impulses at bay and take time to research each social network you join to really reap the benefits of spending time inside the system. Remember, your blog promotion style should be unique to really stand out. For instance, all your other blogging friends are on Facebook and they have been spending days trying to market there. You have to observe if the system works for someone else before you rush to copy the strategy. If possible, list everything you want to try on paper before you actually create an account. This will allow you to cross out the things that you don’t think will help you at all.

Tip #2. Use WordPress’ Comments Feature to Attract Your Targets

Before your blog finds its real identity, you want everyone to visit you and leave comments. However, if you blog about something specific but fail to attract your target market, it could take a while before your site really shows profit. Make sure you know the exact demographics of the target market you want to attract. For instance, you’re blogging about cosmetics and fashion. You can’t just send out a twit inviting everyone to visit because those who aren’t interested in your niche might not feel compelled to go to your blog.

Here’s what you can do: go to WordPress blogs that talk about the same thing and promote your site there by leaving relevant comments that aim to help the visitors of the blog. Beware, however, that you cannot act rude by leaving a comment containing just your link and your invitation for people to visit. Respect the webmaster by posting a useful comment first before inviting his blog visitors to go to your site. In fact, if your comment was thought-provoking enough, you may not even need to invite anyone.

Tip #3: Monitor Your Google Analytics or Website Stats Carefully

If you’re not using Google analytics yet, you should! Having a reliable website stats monitoring system will inform you of the way your visitors behave. You will soon realize that some networking sites are better than others, and which links on your site carry your visitors away before they even start reading your posts. Take particular notice of how your search engine rankings are improving with the keywords you’re using to promote your site.

Reverse psychology in marketing

Did that title of this blog post get you to click on it? My article still may suck, but it illustrates the advantages of using reverse psycology in your marketing campaigns. The internet is full of marketers trying to sell you products. What your Internet marketing campaigns really needs is something that shocks the person you’re trying to reach. You need to surprise the visitor and one of the ways to do this is use reverse psychology. The more you say you don’t want the visitor to do something the more curious they become and want to do what your saying.

How to apply reverse psychology to your marketing campaign?

Lets say you are an SEO firm. On your home page you could have something like, “If you don’t want to get ranked in the top 10 Google search results than don’t buy this product.” Or “If you want your web site to continue sucking than don’t get us to help you.” Or “If you want your competition to continue to kick your ass in search result rankings don’t hire us.” It’s fun to think of these and the possibilites are endless!