Mark'It: Sponsor a Cause, Recall with a Feeling

I recently ran Tufts Healthcare's Women's 10K in Boston. It's my second year running it and I would like to boast that I improved my mile time from a 7:09 to a 7:07! I also achieved this year's running goal-- having my name announced at the finish line. It was a proud moment!! But after the race, I was charged with feel good endorphins and ready to attack the "recovery" tables. After crossing the finish line, they have you walk your way around the Public Gardens, handing you water and leading you to the home stretch of "recovery" tables. These tables are stocked with the most delicious recovery treats any runner could hope for...or at least every exhausted woman that just completed the race. Bananas, oranges, bagels, Powerade, juice, etc. But I skip to the gold mine-- mini Luna bars. Luna bars are delicious power bars/granola bars for women. And what could be a better place to promote Lunas than at a Women's 10k! They are able to capture 99% of the given population at the race with free samples. Delicioussss!

I also really liked that they had tables set up for the general public with taste-tests and free coupons. It seemed to draw a crowd. At many of the tables, I was handed a "runner package" or full sized products and coupons for future purchases. Why not?! I'm their target customer, in their face, and my defenses are down...I'll basically eat anything.

This extends one step further into sponsorship. All of these brands really sponsor Tufts Women's 10k as a source of long term advertising. They hope that when I am fondly remembering my 10k race, their brand will somehow be recalled with a mix of feel good endorphins and post-race hunger. And you know what-- It works...I tried these a week after the race...mini Lunas in the supermarket!!!

New Luna Minis

Mark'It: Gatorade is the new Big Brother

According to this Wall Street Journal article, Gatorade is trying to break into clicks of their drinkers via social media. They have "Mission Control" which alerts Gatorade whenever their brand name comes up on your wall or tweet. Then they assess a need to respond with a high-five or interject with a counterargument. Who do they want to be; the popular kid or the teacher's pet? We all know in high school (that's their main target in this article) the popular kids know that they are always being talked about --good or bad-- but accept that any attention is better than none.

So Gatorade is using social media to monitor and correct their brand image immediately instead of investing in a multi-million dollar repositioning advertising campaign. Cost savvy?? You betcha. Creepy? Absolutely. Genius? We shall see.

But if we think about it realistically-- social media, for the most part, is public information. So if I can broadcast my opinions of products to hundreds of my friends, they are entitled to theirs. Once it's an my wall-- it's for anyone to see (and "Like").

Gatorade's 'Mission': Sell More Drinks
September 14,2010 : Wall Street Journal
By VALERIE BAUERLEIN
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748703466704575489673244784924.html

Skitch it, Snip it, Snap it!

When I was interning for my first website, my boss told me about a Mac tool for "cutting" images right off of your computer screen-- apparently Macs all have this awesome tool. Then one day I found the Window's version, called Snipping Tool. It takes anything off of your screen and makes it a .jpeg. Unfortunately it also only cuts in a square and comes with a big red boarder around it. Not so classy-- but then I got an email about this new product for bloggers: Screen Capture Software

The Best Part:
a) I love cropping random images from my screen shot
b) I was contacted and asked to sponsor this on my blog
c) someone is reading my blog
d) I am officially a blogger!