Lip-Sticking

Here's one Valentine's Day Photo Contest that I Love

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

Another Valentine's Day has come and gone. I haven't had the chance to write a post about the holiday this year until now. It appears that marketers are the ones that are in love with the holiday more than any of us. This year especially I received more emails and saw more ads focused on what I should be doing that day with the person I love and what I should buy this person. It's gotten a little out of control, don't you think? However, it is a good excuse to remind someone that you love them.

Here's a very cute promotion that got my attention which involves some of the loves of my life, pets! Sure Fit, a provider of slipcovers and home and pet solutions, launched a Valentine’s Day Pet Kissing Photo Contest! They apparently have had past successes with their Halloween Pet Costume Contest and Holiday Pet Photo Contest, so they came up with a way to celebrate Valentine's Day.

Sure Fit ran the contest on their Facebook page and invited fans to submit a photo entry of themselves with their beloved pet sharing a smooch for a chance to win items from the Sure Fit Pet Collection. Three prize packages were awarded that consisted of Sure Fit products both humans and pets love!

Meet me in Chicago for Game Changers: The Rules are Being Rewritten. Are You Being Left Behind?

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

I’ll be heading back again to Chicago next month to attend the PMA's Annual Marketing Conference taking place March 14-15 at the Westin Hotel. They've picked up the theme from last year's conference, Game Changers, with a new twist, "The Rules are being rewritten. Don't be left behind".

I say this theme statement is right on today. All of us have to deal with marketing in some respect and it's hard to keep up with the latest technologies, let alone understand how to use them effectively. I was just watching the Today Show yesterday morning and they were interviewing Kate Upton, this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit cover model. She's 19 years old, virtually unknown and was discovered by the videos she has posted of herself on YouTube. She said she has now fulfilled her dream and looks forward to what this opportunity will bring her. I guess you could say she's a Game Changer!

And the Winners are.... Super Bowl XLVI Wrap-Up

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

Who came out winners from Super Bowl XLVI? Obviously as we all know now, the New York Giants beat the New England Patriots in what was a come-from-behind, great game. The Giants got to parade down Broadway in New York City yesterday to celebrate with their fans. Yes, the fans and New York are all winners here as well. Plus of course we have Eli Manning, the MVP of the game, who now has two Super Bowl rings, one more than his brother Payton as the media was sure to bring up several times.

In the 6th annual Doritos Crash the Super Bowl Contest the two ads that were chosen from the 5 finalists to broadcast during the game were both winners. However, the Sling Baby ad has now been picked as the winner in the USA TODAY/Facebook Super Bowl Ad Meter. Online voting, began after each ad aired during Sunday night's broadcast and ended at 6 pm on Tuesday. Viewers picked from 55 commercials on which advertisers spent up to a record $3.5 million for each 30-second slot. Kevin Willson submitted the ad of the grandmother and baby who snatched a bag of Doritos and he will now receive a million dollars and a consulting contract with The Lonely Island. The other Doritos ad that was broadcast during the game, Man's Best Friend, came in #6.

Who, other than the Giants or Patriots, will come out winners from Super Bowl XLVI?

 By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

This Sunday I will be one of the millions watching Super Bowl XLV1 and hoping for a good game, which it should be. As I've stated in my posts over the past couple of weeks, I'm behind the New York Giants all the way and would love to see Eli Manning get another super bowl win, especially while in his brother Peyton's home stadium. I'm sure Peyton will be there also, just not on the field this year.

I'm also hoping to see some real social media integration with the advertising campaigns that we see. If the advertisers are paying an average of $3.5 million for a spot, you would think they would try and get the most bang for their bucks. Last year I called it the "Social Super Bowl" and was disappointed with the overall advertising experience. Other than posting ads on social media, the brands did very little to really engage people and integrate social media into their strategies.

Other than the Giants beating the Patriots, who else is going to come out a winner? Last year the Volkswagen Darth Vader ad scored the highest in the USA Ad Meter for best liked ad. (What was not to like?) Volkswagen utilized social media to post the ad on their blog, on YouTube and their Facebook page five days before the game and it had 13 million views before kickoff. Sine then the ad as gotten numerous awards and nearly 50 million views on YouTube.

This year Volkswagen has already launched The Bark Side, a teaser video featuring a chorus of dogs barking The Imperial March. If you haven't seen it yet, here it is. I love it and think it's brilliant (especially since I'm a sucker for doggies!). It currently has over 10 million views on YouTube. If you click through to YouTube you will also be given the opportunity to view their new game time ad called "The Dog Strikes Back".

Chevy's got a Super Bowl App and a big Game Time Sweepstakes

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

For anyone that is a true football fan, last Sunday was by far one of the most exciting NFL conference championship game days you can have. Yes, it will take a while for Raven fans to get over the missed chip-shot field goal and the 49er's to wonder what if they didn't turn over the ball in overtime. We're now moving on to Super Bowl XLVI with a big rematch between the Patriots and the Giants. As I said in my last post, I'm betting on Eli Manning and the New York Giants to be this year's champions.

The Super Bowl has now become the most active topic of the millions of us who write blogs posts and updates on Facebook, Twitter and now, Google+. In 2011, the only Facebook status update topic in the world, amongst 800 million users at the time that beat out the Packers winning Super Bowl 45 was the death of Osama bin Laden. Since many of these tweets and Facebook updates come via a mobile phone, this year General Motors and Chevrolet is adding mobile to their mix to capitalize off this.

Getting Ready for Super Bowl XLVI and those silly Doritos Contest Ads

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

It's that time of year again to be writing about one of the biggest marketing events of the year. Super Bowl XLVI will be played on February 5 in Indianapolis at Lucas Oil Stadium. Now that the Green Bay Packers and the New Orleans Saints have been eliminated, what teams do you think will win? I'm going with Eli Manning and the Giants. Here's a great article I read yesterday from the WSJ titled "Why Giants Really Could Win It All".

So the next question will be what marketing and advertising campaign will come out a winner? The team at Doritos is at it again with their sixth "Crash The Super Bowl" contest. This contest has become the grandfather of all user-generated contests. The contest finalists have now been posted and last week their submissions surged to the top of the viral video chart after generating over 1.7 million views. This year's contest received more than 6,100 entries from people hoping their video will become one of two Super Bowl ads to be televised during the game, with a possible $1 million prize if viewers rate their ad highly enough.

Cultural Shock Contest Helps Rail Europe Grow and Engage with their Facebook Fans

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

Back in November I helped launch a contest on Facebook for our client, Rail Europe, called Cultural Shock. The contest invites fans of their Facebook page to submit an entry that describes an experience that they may have had while in Europe which exemplifies cultural differences between the European and American lifestyle. Rail Europe is asking people to share their experiences that may have been awkward, unexpected, inspiring or just plain interesting. An example Rail Europe offers is that you ordered steak tartar in France and you thought that you were going to receive regular steak; instead you received a plate of raw meat.

The objective of the contest is to get people to share their submissions with their friends and family on Facebook and invite them to vote for their submission. At the end of the two-week contest period the person with the most votes wins the grand prize for that round. A new contest round starts every two weeks. Currently we are on Round 4 which will be ending on Sunday, Jan. 15. Round 5 is scheduled to start on the following Monday, Jan. 16. We're hoping this is going to be a year-long contest. However, that will depend on if the level of interest and engagement continues to be strong. So far the results have been impressive.

Social, Mobile and Presidential Campaigns to Dominate 2012

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

Happy New Year! I hope everyone enjoyed their holidays and had some time to relax. For my last blog post of 2011 I did a review of the year and featured a post from every month. It is a tradition I have done for the past few years and its a way for me, and I hope you as well, to reflect back on the year dominate

As always with a new year we read about what many predictions and forecasts. With today being just the fourth day of the new year, and the morning after the Iowa Caucus, we already know that it is going to be a heavy political season which has just begun.

This MediaPost article is interesting which states that if we take a look at some of the recent engagement on social media we may be able to predict who will be our next President. Similar to search engine stats which have predicted what items were going to be the big holiday sellers, social media can give us a glimpse into the future as well. This company called Socialbakers has created metrics based on Facebook Likes, sentiments in comments, and interactions to identify the candidates most likely to win at the polls.

A 2011 Year in Review - a blog post from each month

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

Where did 2011 go? Today is my 50th and last post of 2011 on the Lip-sticking blog. I'm planning to continue throughout 2012 and keep my Wednesday morning spot.

At the end of 2010 I wrote this 2010 Year In Review post that included what I felt were my top posts that helped to define 2010. I decided to continue the tradition so I went back and read through some of the posts that I wrote during this year. Here are my 12 top picks, one per month, that I felt reflected the pop culture of the month or that defined a major milestone or shift in marketing.

January - Social Media Monitoring tool helps businesses track who's winning on Facebook in 2011

I started off 2011 with my first post about Facebook and it's continued to be one of my most popular topics all year. I state here that 2010 was definitely the year of Facebook. The social network dominated the media towards the end of the year and this has continued throughout 2011. If you recall, Facebook's CEO Mark Zuckerberg was named Time Magazine's 2010 Person of the Year. We were speculating a year ago on when Facebook would file for their IPO and now it's apparent that will happen sometime in second quarter of 2012. So if you haven't yet, check out this Social Media Monitor that was developed by Wildfire. It continues to be one on the resources I turn to when assisting my clients with their Facebook marketing.

Decorate Grand Marnier's Holiday Tree and they'll Donate to Charities

By Guest Blogger, Donna DeClemente, Donna's Promo Talk

The countdown to Christmas Day is now only four days and so is the time I have left to write about the holiday promotions of 2011. So have you finished your shopping yet? From the sounds of it we have all been helping out the economy quite a bit this year, both online and in the stores. I just have one small thing left to get!

Here's another one of my favorite brands, Grand Marnier, that launched an interesting holiday promotion on their Facebook page. In the spirit of giving, Grand Marnier will be donating up to $10,000 to a deserving charity this holiday season. The "Grand Giving Tree" holiday promotion not only benefits charities, but it also giving participants a chance to win $1,000.

Users can decorate a tree by selecting a holiday ornament that represents one of three charities: the World Wildlife Fund, WaterAid America (dedicated to improving access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene in the world's poorest countries), or Cool Earth (helps indigenous communities halt deforestation one village at a time).