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Facebook Is Using Minors To Advertise Alcohol

November 22, 2011 | 4 Comments

Social marketing holds lots of potential but also many perils, especially when it involves minors.

This is especially true for alcohol advertising. It is both illegal and improper for a 13 year old to promote Coors Light or a vodka brand in a television commercial or print ad.

But it appears that Facebook is clearly violating state and federal law – and its own policies – by using its rich social graph to promote alcohol advertising, on the Facebook pages of minors.

The fact that this is happening shouldn’t be a surprise to Facebook. They not only have known about it since 2007 when they launched ads – this is exactly what social graph based advertising was supposed to do. Here’s what Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg said in 2007 when Facebook launched Ads

Facebook Ads represent a completely new way of advertising online. For the last hundred years media has been pushed out to people, but now marketers are going to be a part of the conversation. And they’re going to do this by using the social graph in the same way our users do … Social actions are powerful because they act as trusted referrals and reinforce the fact that people influence people. It’s no longer just about messages that are broadcasted out by companies, but increasingly about information that is shared between friends. So we set out to use these social actions to build a new kind of ad system.

Want proof? Here’s the ad I saw yesterday on my daughter’s Facebook page. My daughter is 13.

 

Filed Under: Business, Marketing, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Crowdsourcing Moved Your Cheese

May 16, 2011 | 6 Comments

Over the past three years, I’ve written extensively about my company – crowdSPRING, crowdsourcing and speculative work.

Although the debates about speculative work in the creative industries (especially design) continue, the arguments typically are regurgitated rants that add little to the discussion. One of the latest, from idsn, falls squarely into that group.

As is often the case, the real gems – and real discussion, is in the comments. Sam’s comment from a few days ago reflects my own views on the subject:

I went to RISD and I’m a creative director for a major design firm and have led the creative groups for some of the top agencies in in NY and London and I couldn’t diagree with your article more. It’s such an old fashioned approach! You’re a PC, not a Mac… Crowd sourcing moved your cheese…

Don’t you believe that there will always be a place in the world for talented designers? Because there will! And there will always be a place for agencies and design firms. And there will always be a need for beautiful design.

Your argument, in my opinion, is elitist and lacks an understanding of the age we’re living in. People don’t want “perfect” anymore. We’re not in an age of “high design” or “high art”. We’re in an age of DIY and people want different things — there are as many different needs as there are people and projects. Your argument is the same argument against the SLR (and then digital) camera.”Oh no, photography will be ruined, everything will be crap”… Ok, well not everyone is Richard Avedon, but is he the only one who should be privileged enough to take pictures of his kids? Why should individuals and small companies be held hostage by the cost structure that we designers have set for the industry? What are you afraid of? What right do you have, sitting in your typographically decorated office, have to decide what someone should or shouldn’t use for their logo? And what makes you think that a “designer” just because they have been trained at some school can solve any problem? I can’t tell you how many hot-shot, know-it-all designers I’ve had to pull off a project because they wanted to force their aesthetic on the client without regard for the business problem.

My suggestion to the author — stop worrying about other designers who want to reply to Crowdspring RFPs and focus on your clients. It’s not about you — and it never has been…

What do you think?

Filed Under: Business, Marketing Tagged With: , , , ,

How To Pick The Perfect Name For Your Startup

March 17, 2011 | Leave a Comment

I’m often asked by young entrepreneurs whether it’s important to find a strong name for a new startup.

The name is important, but the process to come up with a unique name can easily distract you. For example, it took us nearly 50 hours to come up with “crowdSPRING” – time that would have been better spent focusing on developing the core business.

If you don’t have time too invest in coming up with a great name for your new company, you can leverage crowdSPRING’s community of more than 87,000 creatives to come up with your company name or a product name.

Whether you work on your own to come up with a name or leverage crowdSPRING’s community, let me offer 10 useful tips that should guide this process:

1. What do you want your company name to convey?

Your company name is an important part of your company’s identity. The name will appear on your business cards, letterhead, website, promotional materials, products, and pretty much everywhere in print to identify your company or your company’s products and/or services.

Service oriented businesses should consider whether it will be easy for their prospective customers to recognize what services the business provides, based on the name of the company (example: Friendly Dog Walkers or Bright Accounting). This is especially important early in the life of your new company, when your brand is not well established and people don’t know who you or your company are.

Businesses located in rural areas and serving rural communities may want to project a smaller, hometown feel with their name. However, businesses planning to focus on bigger markets or bigger customers might want to project a larger, more corporate image with their name.

2. Brainstorm to identify name possibilities.

Start by thinking about words that describe your industry or the products/services you plan to offer. Think about words that describe your competitors and words that describe the differences between your products and services and those of your competitors. Consider too words that describe the benefits of using your products or services. Finally, think about words (and phrases) that evoke the feelings you want your customers to feel when they see your company name.

Tip: while brainstorming, look up Greek and Latin translations of your words – you might find new ideas from doing that exercise. Look at foreign words too (we spent some time with a Swahili dictionary looking for strong names).

3. Short, simple, and easy to write and remember is best (and consider acronyms of the name).

Obscure business names are often difficult to write and even more difficult to remember. This is a problem because for most startups and small businesses, word-of-mouth advertising is the most successful form of marketing. If your customers can’t remember your name or can’t spell it for others, it will make it difficult for them to help promote your business.

Think about the names of companies you admire. They typically have a few things in common: their names are short, simple, easy to write and easy to remember. (Examples: Apple, Google, Virgin, Southwest).

While it might be tempting (some startups think it’s cool to do), avoid using a “K” in place of a “Q” or a “Ph” in place of an “F” when coming up with your company name. Such letter substitutions makes spelling the name very difficult and will only cause confusion.

Also, don’t forget to consider the acronym of your company name (an acronym is composed of the first letter of each word in a phrase). You might not use an acronym, but your customers might refer to your business by an acronym. A name such as Apple Support Services can result in an unfavorable acronym – ASS.

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Filed Under: Business, Marketing, Social Media, Startup Tips, Strategy Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Is This The Future of Advertising?

March 16, 2011 | 2 Comments

How will advertising change in the next 10 years?

The following short video offers one perspective.

What do you think?

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Do You Count Every Hour In The Day Or Make Every Hour Count?

March 15, 2011 | 1 Comment

Over the past five years, I’ve talked to thousands of entrepreneurs pursuing their dreams to build a successful startup. The most successful entrepreneurs had a number of things in common – including a deep understanding of how time constrains us.

Here’s the rub – those who were not nearly as successful also believed that they understood the constraints of time. They didn’t.

By definition, we are all constrained by time. There are 24 hours in a day, seven days in a week, and 365 days in a year. We need sleep and time to eat. We need time to relax and time to spend with friends and family.

How is it possible that people perceive the constraints of time differently? Why do some succeed in managing their time and others fail?

I believe the difference is simple: some people count every hour in the day while others make every hour in the day count.

How we prioritize our time defines what we do, when we do it, and how we do it. It’s the difference between successful people, including entrepreneurs and startup teams, and those who fail.

The notion that you don’t have enough time in the day is a lie. You have the same amount of time per day that was available to Albert Einstein, Michaelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, Hellen Keller, Marie Curie, among many others.

It’s all about priorities and what we do with our time. If the task is important to us, we make time. If it’s not important to us, we make excuses.

When we say “I don’t have time for this”, what we really mean is that “I don’t think it’s important enough for me to spend my time doing that thing.”

Some people prioritize their time by playing games on Facebook, watching television, spending time with friends or family, reading, writing, and in many other different ways. There’s nothing wrong with any of those things if they make you happy. But you have to understand that spending hours on Facebook or focusing on other distractions will lead you to count every hour in the day. Simply put: you’ll have fewer hours left to accomplish other things.

Other people prioritize their time obsessing about others. But as Steve Jobs smartly cautioned:

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

The next time you find yourself wanting to say that you don’t have time – stop and consider your priorities. You DO have time. But instead of counting every hour in the day, make every hour in the day count.

 

 

Filed Under: Business, Social Media, Startup Tips, Strategy Tagged With: , , , ,