Burger King has hit viral video payday with their new Whopper Freakout viral video. In the video, customers at Burger King in Las Vegas are told that the Whopper has been discontinued. They are shocked and even outraged, or as the website puts it - they "freaked out."Viral video success is basically about getting lots of people to talk about your thing, whatever it is. In this case, Burger King has succeeded since their videos on YouTube have been viewed thousands of times, and many people, myself now included, have written about their stunt.However, it's one thing to get people ...

Here is the ultimate example of the value of good marketing and packaging: bling H2O, which is basically glorified water in a really pretty bottle, that costs as much as some people in the world make in a year. People pay more for water already when it's in the form of mineral water. But in that case, there are qualitative arguments that are made about the taste and quality of water. Whether these arguments are right or wrong is anybody's guess, but at least people are paying for quality. With Bling H2O, it's all about the bottle and the brand. Yes, bling H2O touts their nine-step purification process and their gold medal for ...

Part of the entry of new media into the world of marketing and advertising is that companies are losing control, and have lost their ability to monologue their message to us. This does not mean that the end of advertising is nigh, but rather that marketers need to rethink and reinvent their strategies, and actually work to gain our "permission" rather than hold us hostage in the middle of our favorite TV sitcom. One of the blessed results of this loss of control is that ads are becoming more and more entertaining. Take this ad from about a year ago:  ...

More and more professionals are starting their own blogs. There is a growing realization that blogging can help advance a person professionally, or market a business. It helps establish them as thought leaders, create relationships with people they wouldn't normally connect to, and increase search engine rankings for their corporate sites. But it's hard to know where to start. Here are some tips that can help you start off on the right foot, so that you can grow as a blogger and head in the direction of becoming a "really professional blogger" (RPB): Really professional bloggers have self-hosted blogs. A self-hosted blog is a blog that is hosted on a person's own hosting account, as opposed ...