Are we too attached to our mobile devices? This television ad from Thailand says it all with very few words. The point is not that mobile devices and content are bad, it’s more about what experiences you are missing, by being glued to the stuff that doesn’t matter. The most powerful social content is the amazing real life events experiences you have to share with your friends, not mundane everyday tweets…Nobody really cares if you checked in at a restaurant unless it’s all about an amazing experience. Social content about true fun, discovery and people living a real life. This is what activates social media. Everything else is a waste of time, because it’s taking away from the experiences you could be having.

Is there any other day to launch a Tequila brand? Tequilador will make it’s U.S. debut at RS Lounge at 35 East 21st Street
between Broadway and Park. With a short window of opportunity between FDA approval and Cinco de Mayo, Luis Enrique Tappan, president of Let’s Import NYC, decided to take advantage of an empty club undergoing renovations and to use social media to make the May 5th date. Foodies and press are invited to taste the first bottles of the 100% Agave Tequila just off the trucks from Mexico from between 6:30pm and 7:30pm. There will also be a hearty appetizer menu to complement the Tequila which is very smooth.

Seriously, I actually did have a meeting last week for a women’s undergarment distributer in New Jersey. The place was perhaps even more ‘MadMenesque than this illustration, in a restaurant called Hell’s Kitchen which has a sort of strip club decor, complete with retro pin-ups. The place was a random selection but but arguably a perfect venue to discuss a body slimming undergarment! Anybody up for a three martini lunch?

The iTunes model is emerging as a dominant approach to marketing everything from movies to restaurants on smart phones, but in rushing to get many of these ventures up and running a key component is missing. Album art found on iTunes is a rich, visually evocative representation of the music and the bands contained within. To truly tap into the success of iTunes, companies making a foray into the mobile space should consider the visual opportunities to engage lift and separate their brands.

1929 Poster for Quick Drying Paint

 
 Other people have paintings in their living room, I have classic advertising posters. The one above is actually a self portrait of the artist, Leonetto Cappiello who painted the same scene on the paint can he is holding. A Poster can be a powerful branding device. It can communicate a mood or product attribute in seconds visually crossing language barriers words often stumble upon. In a world of royalty free stock images and cliché headlines, posters can still be very distinctive. Considering not many people put the art into posters the way they should, there’s a huge opportunity to stand out and perhaps be framed and hang on a wall for years. Not something media people talk about often, but when thirty seconds can still sell for thousands or even millions of dollars a poster can be used in many other formats such as a postcard, a t-shirt, an email, on a cell phone, on a coffee mug, on a train, in an airport and framed on a wall for years for far less. Famous restaurants like Chez Panisse in Berkeley California have used posters for marketing purposes for years and in fact sell them…Yes you heard me correctly, they SELL their marketing communications on their website. Now that’s strategic branding! The next time you talk to a media professional have them do the math on that one. Full color posters can often be folded and inserted into newspapers like the L.A. Times for far less than the actual page rate. The poster above is now probably worth more than Nitrolian’s entire marketing budget in1929! Posters that are framed are posters that are loved and achieve a following brands often set out to do, but too often miserably fail at.