When was the last time you opened a dictionary or encyclopedia? With spell check, dictionary.com, Wikipedia and Google, why would you need to? Need directions? Mapquest and GoogleMaps are at your finger tips.  And if you are out and about, mobile applications like Yelp and Urbanspoon can help you find the ideal dinner spot or the closest dentist.  And best of all, many of these suggestions come bundled with user reviews.

With all of these resources, how often do you open Yellow Page directory?  If you are like me, the answer is rarely if ever.  So why do small business owners continue to buy ads every year?   I think the reason is fear. Fear that they are missing out on a potential lead.  But it is time to let go of the fear, because the fear is making you crazy.

• It is crazy to spend money to drive consumers to a vehicle where they can find information on  your competitors.
• It is crazy to spend the largest percentage of your marketing budget on your least profitable clients. Let’s face it, Yellow Page Leads are price shoppers and tire kickers. If they had a relationship with someone, they wouldn’t be opening up a book and calling strangers
• It is crazy to invest in print, when the world is going digital.

One of America’s most wanted fugitives has been caught, and it’s all thanks to a little creative advertising.

I’ll leave it to NBC News:

(Whitey) Bulger, the notorious Boston mob boss, was captured near Los Angeles after 16 years on the run that embarrassed the FBI and exposed the bureau’s corrupt relationship with its underworld informants.

After an international manhunt, the FBI finally caught the 81-year-old Bulger at an apartment in Santa Monica along with longtime girlfriend Catherine Greig on Wednesday, just days after the government launched a publicity campaign to locate the fugitive crime boss by circulating pictures of Greig on daytime TV and on billboards, the FBI said.

The arrest was based on a tip from the campaign, the FBI said. The campaign’s strategy was based on finding Greig in hopes the two would be together, federal officials said.

I’ve heard of campaigns to raise awareness, create buzz, promote special events, and close sales. This is a new one. It speaks to the power of targeted marketing. The ad campaign was targeted to cities in which the couple had been spotted. To expand their exposure,  the ads were placed strategically in places that women who might have information about the mobster’s girlfriend would be likely to see them.

Catching Bulger was textbook marketing. It took only a few days for the campaign to lead to the couple’s arrest. What does that say about the power of advertising in our daily lives? I would say the quick turnaround in this case speaks to just how marketing-driven our society has become.

Using marketing to capture a felon who’s evaded police for a decade is the most unique example of marketing I’ve seen in a while. When’s the last time you saw marketing used in a creative or unorthodox way? What was the outcome?

To read the full article on how the FBI caught Bulger, click here.

As a company, we have deliberately avoided websites which included an e-commerce requirement . While we do several things really well,  website storefronts are tedious, time consuming, and clunky in WordPress. At Roundpeg we pride ourselves n the simplicity we provide our clients with the maintenance of their website, and typical e-commerce functionality never fit in that wheelhouse…

…until now.

Recently, we discovered a new plugin which has answered our e-commerce prayers. Ecwid allows us to build an easy, professional-looking web-shopping experience on your site. By signing up for a (free) Ecwid account, you can load products into a virtual store and simply plug the store into anyweb page, including one designed in WordPress.

While their paid version has enhanced functinality, even the free plateform  handles hundreds of products with ease, provides sales history by product or client in an easy to download format.  With ECWID, we can offer our clients a robust eCommerce platform which they can manage with just a little training.  The reuslt?  We can better serve our  existing clients, and  work with clients we wouldn’t have considered in the past. And the more folks we can help, the better!

I highly recommend Ecwid to any WordPress developer looking to provide clients with the quickest, easiest, and most functional e-commerce storefront possible.

Imagine being able to target an ad with pinpoint accuracy. Facebook ads are a great way to achieve focused advertising on a tiny budget.

One of the most beautiful things about Facebook ads, according to Inc. Magazine’s article, is just how specifically you can target your desired demographics. Only want to advertise to women in college? No problem. But you can get even deeply, and advertise only to women in college who rock climb and like Lady Gaga. In this way, you don’t waste your marketing dollars on people who are clearly outside your target demographic.

Another great feature is the option to either pay by the impression or by the number of times viewers actually click on the link. You can make very small ad buys–say, $20–to test how well your ad and your demographic targeting are working. You can change ads as frequently as you like–often edgy, hip ads work better on Facebook than stodgy, traditional ad copy.

So get in there, spend a few dollars, and see if Facebook ads are right for your business.

More than anything else, the Coke brand is about smiles.  With that  mission in mind, Coke installed a very special vending machine on a college campus designed to deliver just that.

Watch the video and see if you think they achieved their goal!

I get tired of staying on the same topic too long, so today we are going to take an intermission from the business plan series and celebrate the holiday with something I think I am going to make this a Valentines Day Tradition.

I originally wrote this post a year ago.  It features one of my favorite videos, poking fun at traditional advertising.  As you enjoy this extremely funny video by Geert Desager ( Trade Marketing Manager South East Asia for Microsoft.) think about how much advertising and marketing has changed in fifty years.

50 years ago, advertising was easy, figure out your target audience, and talk at them. Today, you have to talk to them.  What about your marketing? Are you really focused on your customers, or are you focused on you?

This week I began as an account executive here at Roundpeg. As many of you know, I served as an intern here last summer, and I was lucky enough to be invited back to work full-time. It’s been awesome coming into a situation where I’m already so comfortable and feel I fit in so well. With that being said, there are some adjustments for a recent college grad that hasn’t been awake before 9 in the morning since high school (hello McDonald’s breakfast menu!)

With the new year beginning, we have all kinds of new projects. This is the time of year many companies decide it’s time to optimize their marketing efforts, which keeps us plenty busy. There are tons of new things I’ve got to learn and become accustomed to. Luckily, I have a great-and patient-crew around me to help.

The best part about my new job has been the opportunity   to work directly with clients right off the bat, as well as be a major contributor to several campaigns…and this has all been in the first three days.

So far, it’s been one new adventure after another. In my first two weeks I will have already worked on designing websites, attended corporate events, contributed to the blog, and opened dialog with a handful of clients. I’m discovering and learning new things  every day.

I’m really excited about all the possibilities 2010 has to offer. Here at Roundpeg we’ve done a number of things to improve our business strategy and put ourselves in a great position to achieve our 2010 goals. What changes have you made to start the year off right? How will you improve and make 2010 your best year ever?

Creating a flyer for long term care and disability insurance is challenging because there are only so many images of sad or injured people.  And, let’s face it, those images don’t make you want to look at the information.  So, when we were asked to develop a promotional flyer for  Innovative Individual Insurance , we took a different approach…

Our client sells supplemental products to compliment the primary insurance offered by employers.   With the holiday season right around the corner, we thought it would be fun to draw a parallel between the side dishes served at Thanksgiving and their Insurance products.  Our headline:  ”Turkey without the sides…isn’t so appealing”  was paired with eye catching photos of of turkey and the trimmings.

“What Ala Carte options do you need?” Health, Life, Disability, Dental and/or Long Term? Innovative Individual Insurance offers a menu of items where you can pick and choose the types of insurance you need.

At first, grasping the different approach of this  flyer was challenging, but now as I look at the appetizing food pictures and the “Ala Carte” menu, I think this ad could also be used in Bon Appetit magazine!

According to IBM, we are going to see big changes in Advertising in the next few years.  It seems they conducted a study of 2,400 consumers and 80 advertising experts and have written a report entitled. “The end of advertising as we know it.”

They have identified four factors which will drive this change.

1. Attention – Consumers are increasingly in control of how they view, interact with and filter advertising in a multichannel world.
2. Creativity – Thanks to technology, the rising popularity of user-generated and peer-delivered content, and new ad revenue-sharing models (e.g., YouTube, Crackle, Current TV), amateurs and semi- professionals are now creating lower-cost advertising content.
3. Measurement – Advertisers are demanding more individual-specific and involvement- based measurements, putting pressure on the traditional mass-market model.
4. Advertising inventories – Will be bought and sold through efficient exchanges, bypassing traditional intermediaries.

Interesting, they are just discovering what many small business owners have seen for quite awhile,  relationships, not advertisements will drive sales in the future.

I love looking at old advertisements.  While today’s technology allows us to do so much more then our predecessors, there is much to be learned from their simple and direct style.  With less photography, the ads often relied on sketches and drawings to bring the ads to life.   For example check out this coffee advertisement. 

While few of us still wear suits and ties for work, most of us still have that same smile as we enjoy our first cup of coffee each morning. Long before Starbucks arrived, there were neighborhood coffee shops and news stands which fueled the workers of America with cheap coffee.

Here is another one of my  favorites! It is an old advertisement for Coca Cola.  Look at his smile as he fills both hands with bottles of his favorite beverage.  It makes you want to reach out and grab one! And the tag line is designed to get  people to think of Coke as a destination rather then a beverage – a rest stop in your busy day.

The art style of this ad, common in the 30′s, 40′s and 50′s is almost gone now because it is easier to create a photograph then a painting to convert to an ad, but a bit of American art has clearly been lost!

Do you have a favorite retro advertisment or two?  I would love to see them!

Feel free to share your links below!