Propaganda marketing

CHICKMELIONfreelance



It doesn’t seem so long ago... perhaps only less than a generation behind us, when a common saying would flood the editorial offices through North America: “Get the Facts, and just the facts...” it was a long standing credo (or set of principles) by which the news industry built it’s foundations on. These principles where what the media’s credibility was hinged upon as well. People trusted the news based on this rock solid foundation; because in all honesty, without the proof to backed up a statement of fact, you are left with nothing but propaganda.

Then the onset of the internet flushed our worlds with information, both hard and heavy like a great dam busting loose. It was (and still is) next to impossible to monitor and mediate the viability as well as truth in the billions of tid-bits flowing freely on the information highway. This created a predicament for the information seeker. This new medium does not by any means run along the rules of it’s predecessor’s foundations... that old credo of “just the facts”. The internet now allows wide open grazing for free ranging spin doctors with well crafted words to pitch here and there (and dang let’s be honest)... they’re everywhere. It is clear we are standing on new foundations now, without having prepared any solid rules as of yet . You just have to know things have changed when even “sit-com” jokes gravitate around : “if it’s on the internet, it’s got to be true....”


So what does that mean for the business man? Better yet, what does it mean for their consumer?


We are definitely standing on the cusp of some tidal changes in the way we communicate and rely on information. However propaganda spinning is lethal in terms of breaching foundations of trustworthiness, reliability in information available, as well as polluting attempts to relay valid and relatively accurate statistical information. Here’s an example... we hear (at least I do because of the press releases that hit my desk on a regular basis) of the continual climb upwards and onwards of one of our apparently favorite social networking medium: Facebook. The statistics are quoted by many a blogger and entrepreneur. However (and I have asked the question myself many a time) how close to true are these statistics? How many individuals are running multiple accounts? How many are legitimate individuals (because it is not like we take on multiple alternate personas when on social sites.) How many are spammers and scammers? Hey just asking! We also see statistics of their new and very proud system fondly called the “like”button, where the success of a corporate can be flashed on the profile page touting the word of mouth acceptance of their users. My question has always been, “how many of these people who hit the like button are actual customers?” Hey , once again I’m just asking!

I caught a conversation in a status update between two corporates mocking people who just hit the “like” button as opposed to laying down a comment. “Lame” is what they called it. They must have forgotten how public the status updates really are. But this is the problem that spin doctoring creates... a general lack of mistrust in the information being transmitted. Now to further my example we have to factor in “crowd sourcing,” where an entrepreneur can purchase for a nominal price- their “likes.” Although I can certainly applaud the creativity of the marketing “go for the gusto” spirit, it does pollute and dilute the true facts now doesn’t it? This is only compounded with yet another “status update” where a friend was voicing their frustration over continual glitches in certain applications, (man I hear them on this) and the response was, “it is not the Facebooks culture to complain....” Say what? Some of the best products and the solid sales closes have come from overcoming consumer objections. It only makes us reach out further and strive to be better. What culture are we really creating here?

What appears to be occurring - is that the spin doctors spin a tale quoting numbers, all the while the disgruntled (thinking they are outnumbered) remail quiet. Hey, I smell an opportunity here for the online businessman who still runs by the credo of “just the facts.” Problem is, they now have to work doubly hard to win the trust of their own followers. While avoiding the pitfalls of potentially doing as what may “seem” sucessful, for the time being that is.

Now before you raise an eyebrow at me... just try and pitch a potentially successful online investment portfolio to an internet user inundated with the get wealthy scheme at every corner. Your true number may seem somewhat deflated in relation to their overstated enthusiasm. You would think that common sense would suggest the legitimacy of your portfolio over the mass of perhaps not so up front and more than likely overstated scheme of the schemer. But human nature kicks in, especially in the advent of this global's economic belt tightening... and human nature dictates that although twenty people may say the same thing, the listener will hear that one voice that says what they want or need to hear. Which may not necessarily be the truth. This is why the schemes of the schemers are so successful! Yet this is exactly what the entrepreneur with a legitimate pitch has to over come. This or outright mistrust. Take your pick, because polluted and diluted facts creates this sandy ever shifting and unstable foundation of information exchange. That is the culture we now live in. We can either accept it and strategize around it, all the while watching our information sources become suspect to dilution and tainting, or we can come up with some solid strategies to take back the facts and just the facts.


A cases of blatant propaganda spinning:

Not too long ago, Google was hit by a group of spammers. It may have appeared that the hit had originated from somewhere in China. It was suggested an up front legitimate technical college was the home of this spamming team, however we all know that a spammer’s MO is to hijack what ever resources they need in order to lay down their dirty deed while remaining incognito. Through out the exchange and finger pointing and name calling, Google laid down a pretty volatile accusation. They suggested that China was infringing on their people’s rights to freedom of information and internet access. They threatened the communist giant with an all out pull out from the scene. It was spun as a liberation movement for the people of China and their right to access modern 20th century information without the glare of Communist Daddy looking at the information first and filtering data seen as appropriate. To me it had a smack of irony, a free state trying to dictate how a completely unrelated communist governing body should run their business... presented in a manner that had a whiff of borderline blackmail.

Yes indeed, on the surface it seemed a giant was championing for freedoms and liberation ... below the surface was a completely different story. Google had presented to it’s investors the idea of global dominance, it really needed China to get onboard; but when only “Go-daddy.com” stood up and were willing to be counted alongside Google, all bets were off. China showed Google the door and Googles stocks went for a bit of a dive. Ok, this spin doctoring didn’t work, but imagine if it did. Imagine what would our global international relationships, peace and security would be looking like right now, just because of a piece of politic-”king”? Scary isn’t it? It kind of reminds me of the old parable of “never cry wolf.” Perhaps we forgot about that parable and need to recount it to our younger generation, because if we don’t put a cap on the validity of our information sources...what can we trust in a few years to come? Now there’s something to think about!

Yoono Tames the Social Networking Jungle

by CHICKMELIONfreelance

There is a Beta on the block that is readily adopted by over 4 million downloads. (It has even surpassed Seesmic and TweetDeck in monthly users.) It comes as a welcome breath of fresh air for all those trying to juggle multiple social sites and messaging sites all at once. It takes your random “all over the place” information and contacts and organizes them into a handy desktop (or browser) feature called YOONO; offered for Windows, Mac and Linux. Best thing of all, this beta is: free,compact, intuitive, and oh so very easy to use.

Yoono supports Facebook, My Space, Youtube, Twitter, Flicker, Friend Feed, Linkedin, MSN, AIM, GTalk, and Yahoo Chat, with the promise of more coming.

We found out about Yoono via an email slapped down on our desktop and decided to take it for a test drive for the last two weeks. Yoono has become a mainstay tool for our social marketing activities and it has saved us loads of time and grief! In an environment where it seems that the work only piles up, it’s refreshing to get a little boost climbing on top of that pile, especially if it only takes 11.92 MB of space to do so.

Yoono is feature rich giving you versatility in organizing your “day to day” keeping an eye on what’s going on around you. It can be as large as you need it to be; as a fully opened sidebar with a browser (which can be rolled out of the way when not needed,) or as compact as a simple desktop icon at your ready. It offers a pop-up preview feature as well so you can keep an eye on current updates while you work on other projects and the yoono sidebar is parked. If it annoys you, there are the options to shut off the pop-up feature for select scheduled time frames or altogether if you so choose. (Turn the feature back on in the tool box section at the very top of the sidebar.)

The Desktop Sidebar:
This is the driving force of the program, from here you can control which of the support services you wish to interact with and download into the bar. Your toolbox at the top will allow you to add more as you need them You can give “across the board status updates” or “selective updates” depending on your need and preference. All your IM services can be run from one application as well - no more logging on to multiple services. There is a share option which allows you to share links, images & videos across all your networks, as well as the capacity to upload photos and link them into your messages. You can even share in your IM conversations by simply dragging and dropping web content.

keeping on top of your contacts/friends activities and updates is easy from this sidebar. It allows you to receive their messages, notes and tags in real time. The beautiful thing about this sidebar is that you only have to open one program, that’s it. Everything is controlled from one sidebar that can be tucked out of the way when you are not using it. In the initial opening of Yoono, as you check on your social sites and messaging sites you will be asked to plug in your name and password info, but that is the last time in that day that you will be bothered with it. Everything else is readily accessible when and where you want it, just one click away! Everything is pretty compact. You can quickly scan through the status updates for all or just one of your social/messaging sites at a time and when you see something you want to dive in deeper a mere touch of the link pops open the browser.

The Browser:
The foremost feature that impresses me about this roll out browser is that it is fast. I hit a link sent from my friends in my sidebar and the browser is opened up and on it at the snap of a finger. One hit on an icon at my tools section at the top of the sidebar and the browser rolls behind the sidebar and parks. I hit the same icon to open the browser back up and it holds the very same information that I left off with. This feature is fantastic for accommodating multi-tasking while keeping the desk space uncluttered.

The Only Things That Are Missing:
This would be a dream application had Yoono included two key features: the capacity to shrink links and the capacity to pre-schedule status updates. I use both of these features on another program which I run called Hootsuite. However I like the compact and versatile feel of Yoono and it’s accessibility over the very bulky and often temperamental Hootsuite. Maybe I will put it on my wish list and cross my fingers that enough people like myself request the additional features. That would fee up a considerable amount of bulk off of my daily work load, ultimately making me a very happy entrepreneur.

One final thing worthy to note is that you have the full support of the developers if you run into glytches. You can access help via a blog posted on their site at www.yoono.com, (which incidentally is where you can download the program) as well as a help page if you run into technical issues. In all essence, you really have nothing to lose but clutter, frustration, and wasted time by giving Yoono a try... you just won’t regret it!

Online Blackmail Marketing

by CHICKMELIONfreelance



There are a few things on this earth that evoke a negative mental image en-mass except perhaps for mice in your kitchen, mosquitoes in your bedroom at 2:00am and hackers dumping Trojans on your computer. Interesting enough all have the same MO, sneaking in and feeding where they ought not to be (without permission that is) and leaving behind nothing but dirty little reminders of their presence. I believe these vermin have their excuses they console their consciences with, yet unfortunately the finger pointing tends to lead to the victim and their shortsightedness in protecting themselves. The truth of the matter is that the schemes of the schemer is quite sophisticated and ever evolving. Therefore staying one step on top of the game isn’t as easily done as it is to say. When it comes to the less scrupulous feeding from victims online the nature of the beast can be brutal and expensive. Here are a few reminders that you can help yourself with to lessen the risk of being a victim:

1)Be very careful about clicking on links, even from friends.

2)Run a full virus scan if you have clicked on a link and found yourself hostage to a rogue Malware site.
(Malwarebytes is a fantastic program, free with certain limitations and always updated. If backed into a corner, this can be your best ally.)

3)Delete the message with it’s link immediately.

4) Be prepared to change your passwords as a precautionary note.

There are three recognizable players needed in order to complete a successful blackmail marketing campaign. Aside from the obvious victim, as well as “he who gains most “ in the scheme (the hacker himself,) there needs to be a catalyst. The one who is funding and fueling the hacker’s greed. Unfortunately the catalyst may be entirely in the dark about the events that unfold and the victims that come of it... while others outright pay for the dirty deed in order to gain their own hijacking profits.

I was a victim not too long ago. Conversing on my IM with a trusted friend, and unbeknown to both of us, she was infected with a few trojans. As we chatted and exchanged information, (I am in the business of writing and design) she asks me if I sent her “these photos as well” ...and a link was provided. Thinking this was just a normal part of our exchange, I opened it. This trojan went directly into all my social site’s contact lists and my IM contact lists and rang everyone up on my belalf so I wouldn’t be alone in my misfortune. I was held hostage by a program that demanded I comply to one of three tasks all linked to two corporations: An American Survey outfit and an Information Provider via Cell.( Hororscopes, love predictions... you know.) I was threatened that if I didn’t provide my cell number or respond to the survey and risk being locked out of the program I was attempting to open. I took the three minutes they gave me to make my life and death decisions to note the websites of these two outfits, (so I had opportunity to contact them and inform them of the issue at hand.)

I checked to see what these two had in common aside from a black mail hacker? What I noticed immediately was a loud and persuasive call for affiliates. There in lies the problem. An affiliate can make good money hijacking his meal ticket behind the guise of a business relationship. all the while trashing reputations. If you are offering an affiliate program you really need to be conscious of the unsavory element that is capable of just about anything to make a quick buck at your expense. Here’s a few things you can do:

1) Make it a policy to check out each and every affiliate you are considering to take on. it may be a Tedious task, but it just takes one bad apple to ruin your corporate image for you.

2) Beware of any potential fly by night businesses, look very close at affiliates who have just recently opened for business, our hacker isn’t going to keep his shop open for too long before they pack up the shingle and run to the next outfit.

3) Keep a close eye out for affiliates that are racking up business beyond what is statistically proven to be the norm. Incorporate a means of verifying these leads and appropriate action needed to take when an affiliate is suspect. The leads you gain from suspect affiliates will only stick with your business temporarily and grudgingly. The sour taste that is left in their mouth will stick to you for quite some time. they will remember who you are and rest assured they will pass their information on.

It’s a plague, it really is and the least likely victims are coming forwards with press releases shaking their heads. To give you an idea of the scope and seriousness of the situation a slightly different attack landed on the laps of the better Business Bureau in states all across America . A n e-mail “complaint” supposedly originating from them was sent out to accredited and non-accredited companies of all sizes. The bureau at this moment has no idea how their e-mail contact list was compromised, however the goal of the e-mail was to get the recipient to click on a hyperlink. It downloads malware to recipient’s computers, designed to damage or initiate unwanted actions. Which may have included harvesting logins and passwords and forwarding them to the e-mail’s author.

Everyone is a potential victim so everyone needs to gird up and be extra vigilant. In the very least keep the potential threat at the back of your mind at all times so your actions become habit and keep a good Virus program updated and at the ready. One thing I do know about this whole situation ...karma has a wonderful way of knowing full details of everything that goes down, for the amount of voices that are lifted on a global scale every time a scammer runs an internet blackmail scheme... I wouldn’t want to be them when karma meets up with them sevenfold.

Step Back Kids This Is The Way 2010 Promotional Designers Tag Their Urban Environments

by CHICKMELIONfreelance

Projection Advertising - 2010 Showreel from Projection Advertising on Vimeo.

You know I saw a cartoon not to long ago, it was a young graffiti artist standing beside an executive dressed in a suit ‘n hat ... both with spray cans in hand. Only the executive used capital letters and punctuation marks on his tags and he looks at the kid and says...”You bet! Correct Spelling and Punctuation- that’s the way I roll.”

It’s funny how true to form this cartoon really is. The advertisers of 21st century have taken a lesson out of the urban graffiti artist’s rule book and pulled down the cluttered unsightly and more often than not... ignored... billboards; opting for a more interactive and in your face style of medium. Down in the streets, right where the high volume traffic is. Using a medium guaranteed to grab and holding onto your attention. Ok, that is until the next best thing hits the scene. But for now, this is the next best thing!

It is however relatively new so accurate data and metrics are yet to be formatted and translated into some viable white paper as of yet. I don’t see this becoming a flash in the pan “come one day and go the next” fad. No this medium is here to stay and my guess is there will be a push to grab a hold of the attention of the public “out and about” in day to day (daylight) rush hours as well, because at the moment projection marketing is restricted to indoors and dusk /dark settings for optimum view ability. Stretching the time-line availability for the medium will provide for a bigger reach and the end result a bigger bang for the advertising dollar. Just like the advent of any new idea or technology, once the kinks are worked out, cost effectiveness kicks in which in the long run making the medium more viable for mainstream marketers to utilize. For all you nay sayers that say projection technology is for dusk/dark nighttime traffic only, limiting it’s uses ... look down at your iPad and tell me that again... I dare you!

Projection Advertising is well suited with the culture we live in now... where we anticipate to be “wowed” at every turn to even get our heads to turn. Movement is key in this culture. Moving Ads in the form of animations, laid the pavement towards adoption of video marketing and now eye candy of a medium. It just keeps getting bigger and better...can’t say I’m not liking it though, I am after all a part of this “entertain me culture.” (To catch a visual of how fascinating and effective projection advertising can be type in projection advertising - outdoor projection, video mapping into your web browser and buckle up for some pretty fascinating stunts.)

Video mapping has taken the still life out of advertising and replaced it with interactive “wow,” just about anywhere: on tables, buildings, floors, sidewalks, walls, windows and water even. One is only limited by the creative team it has hired and this is such a fun medium, I bet the juices and enthusiasm is at peak for each project. This form of advertising can be set up for short viewings like special events, outdoor stunts, as well as permanent installations. In many instances permits are not even required if the building being projected on is not owned by the vendor, but out of sheer politeness perhaps a heads up for the building’s owners would be appropriate. Just a thought!

Video projections are opening up doors for creative career potential as well. In my research i have came across many listings calling for creative staff with the skill to plan, design and co-ordinate video mapping activities. In addition I also ran across a free download of the type of program used for such mapping, for those who are curious as to the production process behind this highly creative interactive new form of graffiti.

I am excited about where projection advertising is taking us. That high rise which has become mundane has now the possibilities to transform it’s face into a moving, entertaining billboard. Yet unlike stationary billboards which change their face here and there, this high rise can host a multiple of attractive and interactive messages before the viewer can ever get bored with the message. Anyone want to hazard a guess though where we might venture to next? What ever it is, I am looking forward to it!