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kottke.org posts about marketing

Either that or PR

posted by Jason Kottke   Aug 01, 2008

World's worst person decides on a career in marketing.

"I think it's the career path that will best utilize my networking skills and my ability to think outside the box," said Deenan, whose smug, gloating tone and shit-eating smile just make you want to punch his goddamn teeth in. "So I'm definitely thinking marketing. Either that, or PR."

The difference between marketing, PR, branding, and advertising.

posted by Jason Kottke   Jun 11, 2007

The difference between marketing, PR, branding, and advertising.

Mocketing: making fun of your product or

posted by Jason Kottke   May 16, 2007

Mocketing: making fun of your product or brand in order to sell the product and build the brand. Found out about mocketing from this Book Design Review post on a book called Unmarketable.

Big-seed marketing. Instead of relying purely on

posted by Jason Kottke   May 15, 2007

Big-seed marketing. Instead of relying purely on viral marketing or mass media marketing alone, big-seed marketing combines the two approaches so that a large initial audience spreads the marketing message to a secondary audience, yielding more overall interest than either approach would have by itself, even if the message isn't that contagious. "Because big-seed marketing harnesses the power of large numbers of ordinary people, its success does not depend on influentials or on any other special individuals; thus, managers can dispense with the probably fruitless exercise of predicting how, or through whom, contagious ideas will spread."

Update: Full paper with data is here. (via atomiq)

Speaking of brand genericide, Heroin was actually

posted by Jason Kottke   Jun 23, 2006

Speaking of brand genericide, Heroin was actually a brand name trademarked by the Bayer drug company. (thx chris, who joked, "Can I interest you in some Heroin brand morphine substitute?")

Brand genericide

posted by Jason Kottke   Jun 23, 2006

Harris Interactive recently released a list of products ranked by brand equity, a measure of the brand's popularity with US consumers. Here's the top 10:

1. Reynolds Wrap Aluminum Foil
2. Ziploc Food Bags
3. Hershey's Milk Chocolate Candy Bars
4. Kleenex Facial Tissues
5. Clorox Bleach
6. WD-40 Spray Lubricant
7. Heinz Ketchup
8. Ziploc Containers
9. Windex Glass Cleaner
10. Campbell's Soups

Marketing can be a double-edged sword. The companies who manufacture these products have done a fantastic job in marketing these products, so fantastic in some cases that the brand name is in danger of becoming a genericized trademark. From the list above, I routinely use Ziploc, Kleenex, WD-40, and Windex to refer to the generic versions of those products, even though we sometimes use Glad products instead of Ziploc, Puffs instead of Kleenex, or another glass cleaner instead of Windex. If the companies on this list aren't careful, they could lose the trademarked products that they've worked so hard to market so successfully.

Here's a list of American proprietary eponyms, or brand names that have fallen into general use. Some of the names on the list are so old or in such common use (escalator, popsicle) that I didn't even know they had been brands. Two current brands I can think of that might be in danger of genericide: iPod and Google. (via rw)

An extensive listing of all the promotional

posted by Jason Kottke   Jun 07, 2006

An extensive listing of all the promotional merchandise from Pixar/Disney's Cars. Over 70 licensees will be offering themed merchandise like toy cars, cross stitch kits, books, staplers, shower curtains, sippy cups, and a boatload of Kellogg's cereals. Holy overload.

The pace of razor development is staggering;

posted by Jason Kottke   Mar 19, 2006

The pace of razor development is staggering; we could be at 14 blades by 2011. (via airbag)

The delicate marketing of Brokeback Mountain. In

posted by Jason Kottke   Jan 27, 2006

The delicate marketing of Brokeback Mountain. In Manhattan for example, analysis of the city's various social microclimates was used to select the opening theaters to de-emphasize the art-house aspect of the film. (via dj)

One of the most popular cough and

posted by Jason Kottke   Jan 10, 2006

One of the most popular cough and cold products out there is not medicine at all and was formulated by an elementary-school teacher.

More and more, shoppers are judging books

posted by Jason Kottke   Dec 23, 2005

More and more, shoppers are judging books by their covers. "Studies show that a book on a three-for-two table has about one and a half seconds to catch a reader's eye."

Top 10 cheap marketing ploys to increase sales

posted by Jason Kottke   Sep 13, 2005

Top 10 cheap marketing ploys to increase sales of comic books, but as noted in the comments, a sufficiently generalized version of this list would work in many instances.

An interview with David Greiner of Campaign

posted by Jason Kottke   Sep 09, 2005

An interview with David Greiner of Campaign Monitor. Some good stuff in here about starting a small business on the Web.

I love that Davenetics still shows up

posted by Jason Kottke   Aug 10, 2005

I love that Davenetics still shows up in these graphs of the top blogs on Technorati. I read Davenetics daily but the only reason it is on the list is because it's linked in a default Blogger template. If T'rati actually looked at their "statistics" instead of just using them to market to us, this sort of thing is pretty easy to spot (if the ratio of the # of links vs. the # of sites linking is close to 1.0, the site may not belong on the list). (Oh, and Binary Bonsai is suspect as well...its high rank is at least partially due to a default link on a popular Wordpress template.)

A quick take on Apple's control freakishness

posted by Jason Kottke   May 03, 2005

A quick take on Apple's control freakishness. "Running a tightly controlled company has worked well for Jobs. But being a little out of control can pay dividends, too - by fostering creative freedom, not to mention goodwill. Jobs need only look at his own slogans. Life Is Random. Enjoy Uncertainty. At Apple, this is marketing, not a way of life."

Books that changed the world

posted by Jason Kottke   Apr 22, 2005

Books that changed the world. Just a few of the things that have changed the world so far: cod, salt, chips, radio in Canada, sewing machines, atomic weaponry, quinine, cables, sheep, gunpower, etc. etc.