Miss USA contextual ad fail?

Not sure Miss New York USA - Davina Marie Reeves would be too happy with this contextual ad served up on her profile page on the Miss USA website.

Look in the bottom right of the page. It was an animated ad so I took a few screen captures.











Here's a link to the CanesOral page - in case you are interested.

Hot Couples Bowling - for a good cause.

Here is an local Moncton event that is going to be GREAT----come have fun and support an important cause in our community. You can make a difference. Imagine having a blast and doing good. The perfect night. Don't miss out!!'

The deets:

Hot Couples BOWLAPALOOZA
Fairlanes Bowling Center
Friday, April 30th
6-8 PM
Free babysitting, crafts, playroom and yes, even supervised bowling for the kids
Groove to our very own DJ
Tons-o-prizes

All proceeds to Moncton Headstart’s Chocolate for Charity auction

Price is just $25 per couple

Here's the official invite we did up:


Interested?

RSVP HotCouplesBowling@gmail.com by noon on April 28th.

Razor is looking for a Graphic Designer

We're running an ad on CareerBeacon next week looking for a Graphic Designer. If you are interested, apply now and beat the rush.

Here's the ad:

Graphic Designer

Razor Creative is looking for a talented Graphic Designer to work in our Moncton office. You must have a minimum of 3 years industry experience with a solid portfolio filled with examples of both web and print design. You must know Illustrator, Photoshop and InDesign (some Flash would be an asset too) and be able to multi-task in our busy, fast-paced and creative environment.

Email us your resume and some samples of your portfolio before May 12 to:
iwannawork@razorcreative.com

We thank all applicants for their interest; however, only qualified candidates who submit a portfolio will be contacted.

Pay with your face - with FaceCash

This is very cool.

Here’s how it works: You download the FaceCash application on your smartphone , add your bank account information and other information to verify who you are and upload your picture. You can now use your phone to make in-person transaction, whether at a restaurant or at a grocery store — as long as the merchant has signed up for the service. This point is key - the merchant has to participate. To accept your payment, the merchant simply scans the FaceCash barcode on your phone with a scanner, and your picture will pop up on their computer screen — which helps them avoid fraud. They then approve your payment.

Here's a quick demo.






What's in it for the merchant? It's half the price of credit cards. Even with that, the challenge will be to get stores to adopt the system. Should be interesting to see all these new payment systems trying to get a piece of the payment pie.

Here's an article on the product.

Random Acts of Chocolate

Saw this is the paper this weekend:




Looked up the site. Nice idea.


Essentially a buy one, get one free offer, but with a very nice twist. Love it.

I bet they will have a high redemption rate and generate some buzz.

Visit the site here.

Get a coupon.

Starbucks four social media responses

There's a great article about how Starbucks builds meaningful customer engagement via Social Media. It outlines 10 philosophical precepts that drive the company's social media efforts. Read all 10 here... here's one that I really like. It's great advice.

Responding
Whenever Starbucks identifies a problem or opportunity online, it responds in one or more of the following four ways:

Amplify:
As Starbucks identifies trends or something its customers seem to like, Starbucks amplifies whatever it is to help bring it to the surface and increase visibility and enthusiasm.

Context-ify:
Back in 2004, an e-mail was going around claiming that Starbucks had refused to supply free product to GIs serving in Iraq. Many people believed it, got pretty angry and forwarded the message to all their friends. Unfortunately, the message was false. By context-ifying the message, Starbucks revealed the other side of the story--check it out yourself on snopes.com.

Change:
If it's broke, fix it. MyStarbucksIdea.com actively solicits constructive criticism and ideas to improve its business and gather suggestions for products, services and projects.

Ignore:
You gotta respond? No, sometimes it's best to ignore, especially when it appears you're being provoked into a response or fight. It's easier to ignore things when you can put them into their proper context; for example, if your primary critics are a Facebook Group with 82 members out of the 400 million-plus Facebook accounts, you have little to worry about.

Read all 10 points on the OpenForum.com site here.

Imperial Forces Propaganda Posters

via All That's Interesting site.

Gummy Shot Glasses

It's true -- you can get a set of six shot glasses made from delicious gummy. Available at Vat19.com





Love this SNLish promo video:

Advertising to Gen Y on Social Networks - What does Ford think?

Scott Monty is the head of social media for Ford Motor Company. I read and follow his insights regularly and find his perspectives and insights on social media are usually bang-on. As you would expect Ford is keenly interested in selling vehicles to many different generations, including Gen Y.

His point of view is that Ford is "not interested in advertising on social networks. We're interested in getting in there and interacting with people."

Reseach shows that while 84% of Gen Y notice ads, only 19% think they are relevant to them.

Monty goes on to detail what Millennials do care about on social networks:

"Getting news or product updates (67%)
Having access to promotions (64%)
Viewing or downloading music or videos (41%)
Submitting opinions (36%)
Connecting with other consumers (33%)

There's an opportunity here for you, marketers. If you want to make a splash on a social network where your customers are, make it worth their while. Give people updates about your products - perhaps information that they can't get elsewhere, or make it the first place you place the updates. Give them an offer that can only be gotten from the social network.

In other words, provide value and be contextually relevant to why they're there in the first place. Don't interrupt them with your ads and expect results."

Great stuff. You can read the entire Post and enjoy more of Monty's insights on his blog.

Fantastic Cake

There seems to be a lot of shows on TV about cakes these days. Not sure what this says about us as a society... if anything. It used to be you had either a round or square cake - that's it - now it seems that you can create just about anything out of cake. Including other food. Weird, but delicious.

Here's some neat shots from toxel.com








See more cakes here.

The Tasty Cow: Radio

Mmmm cow.

This is a 30 second radio spot Razor Creative developed for The Tasty Cow Gourmet Burger Shop. If you live in the Greater Moncton area and want an awesome burger check them out --they are located within Diesel Pizza in Riverview.



Bring in a pair of cow slippers, ask for Jeff and maybe he will give you a free pop with your order.

View their menu here.

50 people 1 question

Great concept and very well made.

How would you answer if you were asked the same question(s) by a total stranger on the street with a camera?

PostSecret: Confessions on Life, Death and God from Frank Warren on Vimeo.

Fifty People, One Question: Brooklyn from Fifty People, One Question on Vimeo.

Fifty People, One Question: New Orleans from Benjamin Reece on Vimeo.

See more here.

Desk Phone / iPhone Dock

So want one of these...










According to their website, with Desk Phone Dock, you can use your iPhone as your one and only integrated wired desk phone in your office or home environment. You can make and receive calls like you did with a traditional wired phone. Your iPhone is always fully charged and ready to go at any time.

Desk Phone Dock has built-in two stereo speakers, microphone, volume control, instant mute and USB & AC power dual sources. With these built-in features and distinctive design, Desk Phone Dock will keep your desk neat.

Very smart.

See more about the phone here

6 Pitfalls To Avoid When Choosing A Domain Name

From the Influential Marketing Blog, here are 6 mistakes to avoid when it comes to domain names:

Pitfall #1 - Automatically using your business name. It may seem like the best thing to do is to take the exact name of your business and append a “.com” to the end of it. The problem is, sometimes your business name is too long, or your customers may know it differently.

Pitfall #2 – Not reading it together without caps. One thing that is easy to forget about domain names is that when someone reads it without any uppercase letters, the words run together. So if your small business lets people trade books and in the real world it’s called “The Books Exchange” – if you register that name online (www.thebooksexchange.com), you inadvertently just gave your site a whole new meaning.

Pitfall #3 - Assuming the best URLs are taken. Last year I finally registered www.rohitbhargava.com. You might think that couldn’t have been that hard, but I have have trying to get it for more than a decade (literally). How did I finally get it? Many domain names that have been registered for years come back on the market after their owners fail to renew them. So keep checking … you dream URL may become available any month.

Pitfall #4 – Thinking people can spell, or that they all spell the same way. One of the basic truths about people is that they can’t spell seemingly simple words. And even if they can, across different cultures, various words are spelled differently. Traveler has one “l” or two, words like “organize” with a “z” change to “organise” depending on where you are. As much as possible, try to use words that are easy to spell and are spelled consistently.

Pitfall #5 – Not registering common alternate versions. Sometimes no matter what you do there are going to be multiple ways that people will try to find you. Coca-cola will always have to register www.coke.com as well as their full name. Think about the common alternatives for your business: for example, plurals, or versions with qualifiers like “the” or “a” in front of them, and register those. Even if it just captures one more potential visitor to your site, isn’t that worth the extra $10 a year?

Pitfall #6 – Failing to use relevant keywords in a URL. One of the best ways to get better Google rankings is by having a URL that has a particular relevant search term or keyword as part of it. So if your entire small business is focused around shoes, try your best to get that word into the URL you do choose. Your site will likely rank much higher on search engines as a result.

Great advice, read more here.

Amazing sculptures that look like they are in motion

Via thisblogrules.com

See more here.

Happy Easter.

Nothing says Easter like getting your photo taken with the cute, cuddly Easter Bunny. He's so nice and friendly... and then there's these bunnies (below). See more of these gems at sketchybunnies.com












View more here.