I recently tried out Prezi for a LGBT studies presentation. The amazing thing about it is the ease of which you can organize ideas, show a clear path, and demonstrate how each idea lines up with the bigger picture. The basic tools to create a prezi presentation are on the website AND with a student email you have the ability to save your presentation on Prezi’s “cloud” to access or download wherever you’d like. It’s free, almost all computers can play Prezi presentations, and most importantly it is so very simple. No long boring bulletins of information, no awkward slide transitions, and most importantly, your not bound by the annoying box’s of powerpoint.  You have an infinite canva that lets you zoom in and out indefinitely.

The Prezi presentation was something no one else in the class had seen, gave a fresh clean perspective on my topic, and made the entire project more enjoyable. The next time you have a presentation and need to think of a way to spice it up, try Prezi out!

Did you know that Temple University is developing a new Corporate Sustainability Minor? A huge field is opening up in the advertising and P.R. industry in helping a company’s image become more, “green” but what are the pitfalls of this new advertising terrain?

I’ve bumped into approximately 3 people in the past week reading about Futerra Sustainability Communications report on Greenwashing in todays media. Beautiful graphic images displaying how greenwashing is affecting the credibility of one of the few burgeoning fielding in advertising today, and what we can do to point it out and stop it. Here’s a quick hint of what you’ll find.  Download the pdf here

LG present the PONDER THAT application that allows you to grow a full “realistic” looking beard while you video chat with friends.

In a new LG campaign against the growing trend among teenagers and adults to “sext” it reminds people of the consequences of inappropriate online behavior. The campaign also features James Lipton in several commercials and reminds people to use the metaphorical beard to ponder what your doing before you text.

The multimedia campaign called “Ponder that” is sure to get attention for several reasons.

Celebrity figure: James Lipton (come on, that beard is iconic)

Viral capabilities: popular youtube driven campaign along with the newly popular “microsite” that allows you to grow your own beard. The videos have already had over 200,000 views with almost 70 blog posts about the subject.

Market Research: Agency Young and Rubicam realized their prime demographic were teenagers and young adults; by distributing through youtube and microsites, which have become increasingly popular due to Burger King campaigns, they distributed for maximum exposure to their prime audience.

PR: Obviously LG, a cell phone company, publishing a campaign against the dangers of sexting creates a great image for the company.

On another note, I recently video chatted with my friends using the beard app. Its hilarious. Peep the website to download the beard app here.

Why not check out the official American Marketing Association podcast?  Download the official American Marketing Association podcast on the site or look up Marketingpower on Itunes to have it automatically downloaded to your ipod ever week. Check out up to date interviews with leaders of the industry and current topics about what is going on today.

Interview coming up? Working up the courage to ask your professor about a certain internship? Perhaps you just wanna ask the cute girl in your

AMA class out? What better way to strike up a conversation then with relevant information about the industry YOUR studying?

Direct link to the site

Subscribe to podcast

Well more corporation are simply creating their very own content (or investing in others) to get their product out there and in your face seamlessly.  Spending 2 minutes on Creative-online can easily turn to 20 with it’s inspiring youtubelike content. The newest film by “Where the Wild Things Are” director Spike Jones is already stirring up interest after it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.

Its a quirky love story that follows the lives of two Robots and the shenanigans that involve Robo-love making. Oh and did I mention the entire thing is a gigantic commercial for Absolut? Yeah, running with the “In an Absolut world” tagline the entire movie is just the tip of the large newly defined category of “Branded Content.”

Got a couple seconds to spare?

Their newest campaign scans your Facebook friends to to see how hetero they are and uses the average to rate your profile. (If you have a TON of friends get ready because it takes a while.)

Feel free to judge yourself and your friends, my personal favorite was the app that scans facebook tweets

Scan your tweets to see how “Hetero” they are

Sick of your boyfriend listening to more Britney then you do? Scan his playlist and call him out.

A website dedicated to scanning your facebook photos and comparing it against the “Hetero” norm

Cute, viral, and an excellent use of social networking sites. Two politically correct thumbs up for Akestom Holst

Hopefully such promising news will boost confidence in other online media adventures. The rumored apple “islate/ipad” has had Warner, Conde Nast, Meredith, Hearst and News Corp and any other news publication scrambling to beef up their graphics department. They’ve all joined forces to push into the rapidly growing field of online magazines and from the demo’s floating about online it looks pretty exciting.

The I-slate is supposedly being announced January 27th. Who knows what new advertising opportunities will present themselves in this emerging online platform?

Pepsi' new, modern, clean, logo and globe design.

Pepsi’s famous globe image and logo has been updated, something this doesn’t happen very often. Although the logo changes from time to time, the Pepsi globe image has stayed the same since its introduction. The globe has been changed from the yin-yang style, with the blue and red sides being somewhat symmetrical and separated with a white space between them. As you can see, this design has been used since 1950, more then a half century ago:

The new globe uses a more a more stylized version with the red using more space and has lost it’s symmetrical design. I find the use of the increased red help draw more attention to it. Here is the line up of the new Pepsi cans: 

I have a particular interest in branding and packaging design, and I personally have always thought their last design was busy, and the colors were dull and didn’t provide enough contrast to really look appealing or catch your eye:

But again, this is only my opinion. Having said that, I absolutely love the new design. I find it to be very modern, extremely clean, and I feel provides enough contrast to draw attention to it, allowing one to clearly differentiate between the word “Pepsi” and the famous globe logo. In the last design of the diet Pepsi can, seen above, the font and globe was relatively small, especially next to the new one.  In the old regular Pepsi design, I feel the text and globe blended in too well with the busy background:

A few other Pepsi products are also getting updated logos, as can be seen with the Sierra Mist packaging Here:

With the first major redesign since the introduction, the global change was a big one for the company. I think the use of the new packaging and logo was a good move for Pepsi, allowing its product to be more “eye catching” in my opinion. One last completely random thought. I was watching Back to the Future Part Two the other day, and part of the movie takes place in the year 2015… in one scene of the movie, Michael J. Fox walks into a café and asks for a Pepsi. The ‘future’ design of the bottle is completely different, but the logo appears very similar to the old globe, the the addition to the words Pepsi Perfect. Just food for thought:

Cheesy ads for over commercialized jewelry companies are pretty much the norm, but the Jared commercials break the mold. I am honored that a jeweler would name his chain of stores after me (kidding of course), but these ads are driving me nuts. I can’t tell you how many people meet me, point to a friend and say, “ he or she….went to Jared !!!”

I understand their commercials are somewhat entertaining, but aren’t they trying to sell reasonably expensive jewelry? I didn’t think that talking GPS units or obnoxious distant cousins sold high end consumer products. Maybe they are trying to separate themselves from companies like Kay and Zales. If this is the case, are they just trying to be the “cool” one in the family? Maybe they could try and pull off the crazy uncle at holiday parties that makes repetitive jokes and contortionist funny faces, but nothing more. I hope they are not trying to compete with companies like Tiffany’s or David Yurman and if so, they might have a long hill to climb.

I don’t know if I am just getting personally offended because they didn’t consult me first, but the constant bantering of the tag line during introductions is getting tiresome. On a positive note, I haven’t heard the usual comments during introductions such as, “Your name is Jared, like the Subway guy? Are you related? haha.” Trust me, I have heard them all and even though the Jared The Jeweler line gets old, it could be worse.

I guess the reason I’m writing this is to get you excited about our award-winning web identity. You should get involved with the site, this blog, and anything else Justin may manage. We are the techno kiddies, after all, no?

This is fun stuff; I only had one committee member last year (Justin) and never really understood why. You get to learn WordPress, the greatest blogging/CMS platform in all the world (I know I work for Automattic, but this is a world truth, regardless), gain experience in the realm of web marketing, and can add a bit of a technology spin to your resume. I know some individuals within the large membership base are at least slightly interested in this stuff – or at least I hope so.

I believe I’ve signed on with AMIS/AMA to do some sort of WordPress workshop – in fact, I’d be happy to do an entire series of these, if the desire was determined. So don’t be scared! I’m here to help, along with Justin (actually, he’ll probably have to do more of the work, as there are not too many hiding places on campus). I’d even be willing to answer any questions personally – I’m sure you can find my e-mail. Consider these words of encouragement to get involved with the web committee.

It’s your web site. Help Justin and the AMA make it even better.