Andrew Grosman Blah …g

This is the first installment in an ongoing look at talking to, using the products of, and general embracing of brands.

Its finally here. And I have it on. It wears like a brand new, 60 – thread count dishrag, but it was free, and it proudly trumpets my affiliation. I am wearing my Miller High Life ¾ sleeve t-shirt.

It was quite a trek to get here; about fourteen months and 510 beers. Roughly every 0.67 months, I would buy a 30 pk of Miller High Life. When it was gone, I would rip apart the cardboard, and diligently enter the code at www.millerhighlife.com.

One year and half a summer later, I show my love for my favorite beer.

…well so what? So you got a free shirt? Big deal.

That response would be fair. But this is more of a discussion of what we will do for a brand than a discussion of freebies and fashion.

There are very few brands that I will evangelize. There are even fewer that I will wear. I like Ford trucks, but believe myself to be far too cosmopolitan to be wearing a Built Ford Tough hat around (I keed – I live in ‘Stallis). The Adobe Creative Suite is only second to my toothbrush in hierarchy of importance; still it’s another item I won’t have on the back of my Member’s Only jacket any time soon.

But I identify with High Life. It tastes good and is affordable.  A Good Honest Beer, At A Tasty Price. Its something that I enjoy, and don’t have to wait, or save up, to have. And because value is an ideal I hold in high regard, I am proud to talk about it, and show the world that I know a good deal, and a good beer. So much so, that I

1. Bought 17 30pks of beer
2. Bought very little other brands of beer
3. Took the time to rip out the promo code and enter it online, 17 times

So yeah, I guess I’m livin the High Life. The Champagne of Beers was worth it to me, to interact beyond just buying it and drinking it. I followed a lengthy process of sticking with a regimen of beer, entering data for a questionable quality shirt, so I could show everyone that I like this lager.

How do you embrace your brands? What ones are important to you?

…what are you wearing right now?

Will Blogging Be Replaced By Updates?

There is a great article at *GAWKER that discusses Blogging and its future, in relation to other Social Media tools (Facebook, Twitter). It questions whether blogging was a fad, and will go to the wayside much like HAM radio gave way to corporate production of radio.

While many of us embrace the various ways the Internet allows us to communicate, television, radio and (to some degree) print are still strong, and deliver messages that “the series of tubes” cannot. Sure, you can update your friends and family in 140 characters or less, but it doesn’t offer the same insight, nor impact, that a blog post can.

What I do think will peter-off is the cacophony of MySpace/eBlogger/Charming-Thing-My-Kid-Said-Today blogs – some will linger, but many will migrate to the quick update that a Facebook status / Twitter  post allows for. What will remain are the industry-specific news driven blogs, and the creativity outlets – blogs that allow for the author to share their message in a way only a blog can, via a story, imagery, and sound.

Two such creative outlets are BreakfastCritic.com, and Dioramawatch.com. Both are public, welcome the comments of visitors, and are expressions of their respective authors, but neither carry the assumption that they will reach a mass audience. They allow for an outlet to express, and to have fun. If anyone reads them, that’s icing on the cake.

So there probably won’t be a new Buggles song that is a  blogging epitaph. There will merely be more status updates from your Great Aunt.

*The GAWKER article is an excerpt from the book “Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming, and Why It Matters” by Scott Rosenburg.

In this unstable world of severely fluctuating markets, global terrorism and infighting of American Idol judges, we have little to count on. The “rocks” that I cling to, personally, include my lovely wife, my fabulous daughter and the fact that a Coca-Cola® served at McDonald’s® is better tasting than any other Coke in the world. But even this pillar of truth has been attacked by close friends and respected coworkers.

But I’m telling you it’s true.

A Coke from McDonald’s tastes sweeter, is more satisfying and tickles my taste buds with light citrus notes. In fact, when I’m at other Coke-serving restaurants, I’ll ask for a slice of lemon in an attempt to recreate that great “Golden Arches” experience.

After years of defending my position, I finally asked The Great Oracle if there was anyone else out there like me. Google said, “Yes, you are not alone.” It turns out that several forum posts, and Yahoo Answers pages, are devoted to the idea.

UNNXMAL.com featured a Coke fan asking a McDonald’s shift manager about it – he told her they “pre-chill” the syrup before it gets mixed and dispensed, so straight from the fountain (with no ice) your drink is quite cold. Other restaurants pour room temperature soda into a cup of ice – creating instantly-watered-down-Coke.

But I am confident that it goes beyond not being “watered down.”

The folks who took the time to comment on a Yahoo Answers thread postulated on several theories:

1. McDonald’s uses more carbonation and less syrup.
This doesn’t seem to be true, as I have found it’s actually sweeter.

2. Freshness of product.
I think there is some merit to this.

3. The quality of the local municipality’s tap water.
This makes sense. Note to self: Do not order a Coke in Love Canal, NY.

And others say that McDonald’s just cleans its machines more thoroughly and more often. I have performed my own blind taste test – pitting a McDonald’s Coke against a can. Each was placed in a glass, and I readily picked the McDonald’s coke.

So, what does this mean? Have I fallen into the chasm of Brand Evangelism? Have years of habit petrified into years of devotion? Were my taste buds horribly disfigured in a freak soda accident? Maybe it’s simple truth. Or maybe it just means that I will never deviate from my drink order, and I will carry that allegiance to my grave. All I can really say is: Have a (McDonald’s) Coke and a smile.

Google has winnowed its way into my every day, morning noon and night.
And 1:30 am.

I didn’t realize just how much I rely on it until I wrote out the list of ways I use it, but that comprehensive list is below. My hope is that you will learn some new ways to Google better.

My realtor sends me an email
And it has MLS info, and low res pictures. But what does the rest of the neighborhood look like? How far is it from a major throughway? A quick copy and paste of the address and city into Google Maps (and then, Google Street View), and I am looking at not only my potential new home, but its neighborhood, and all of its possible inadequacies. And when want to go see that home, I plot my directions into Google Maps to get the route.

Is my blog getting any publicity?
Google Alerts lets me know. It also lets me know any and all places my name is online. (Get a Google Alert for your own name – you will probably be surprised.)

Google Page Rank of your Web site
How does my Web site measure up in Google’s importance algorithm? Your competitors? Installing the Google tool bar in your web browser allows you to view the number (from 1 to 10) that Google associates with your Web site. Google figures that number when a different Web site links to yours, effectively casting a vote for your site. This generalized number is a snapshot of how well my Web site can be found by people using Google, and how much Search Engine Optimization I need to do for my Web site.

Email and more
My Google Gmail is …email! But it also serves as my signup to much more that Google offers (Google Docs, Web Analytics, and more).

A place for my digital stuff
I have some Excel sheets on my work computer, Word docs on my home computer, and am waiting for a friend to send me another file. Google Docs (associated with my Gmail) means I can always access these files, wherever I am – particularly useful for a webguy with 30+ passwords to remember.

I see you looking at my Web site
Google Analytics – a webstats program, allows several statistics that some of the expensive programs have, for free. One of the coolest features of Google Analytics is that you can see the name of actual companies that visit your Web site. Want to see if that pitch was a hit? What specific companies took the time to act on your direct mail piece but didn’t actually contact you? Google Analytics can show you. Are you running a paid search campaign on Google? You can setup these words to associate them with specific web pages on your site (such as contact forms or product pages) to identify them as “conversions”. That is, did some one click on your ad and fill out a form or buy your product? If so, this ad was successful and converted this person into a customer.

Google in the Kitchen
I don’t cook much. When I do, I am horrible at converting ounces to cups and hogs heads to gallons. But a quick question on Google and I know just what I need.

3 ounces to cups
3 US fluid ounces = 0.375 US cups

Did I use the right word?
Use Google as your dictionary, for immediate results, from different sites (one may be more apropos than the other).

Define: apropos
Definitions of apropos on the Web:

• seasonably: at an opportune time; “your letter arrived apropos”
• by the way: introducing a different topic; in point of fact; “incidentally, I won’t go to the party”
• of an appropriate or pertinent nature
  
• Alternative form of apropos
  

My oracle
My Google Home page (via my Gmail account) tells me things that other Web Portals would (Yahoo!, MSN, etc), but also allows me to have all of my RSS feeds in one place.

Almost Google (sites based on Google)

Mine is better than yours
Want to demonstrate in a fun way what product or term is better? Pick a Google Fight! Googlefight is a Web site that allows users to compare the number of search results returned by Google for two given queries. The results are displayed graphically in a mixed flash and JavaScript animation.

Google Fight for Google vs Yahoo!

Let me Google that for you
Has someone asked a question that would have been easily answerable via a quick web search. Show them via this site which will show them an animation of someone typing their question, followed with showing them the results via Google.

Let me Google that for you – Elvis’ birthday.

There are probably others I forgot. But from the ones above, you can see how different the web would be without, The Google.

I send videos to my mother so that she can see her granddaughter on a regular basis. Not just SEE her granddaughter, but to witness moments in her life that are meaningful and special (eating Grandma’s pumpkin bread, or opening a gift that Grandma sent her). I’ve sent videos to a past neighbor so he could see the water leak in the house he is not around to sell. Casual high school acquaintances are posting videos to MY Facebook page, saying hello or simply commenting on their everyday life.

Why? Because we have a close, but forgotten, personal bond? Not necessarily – but because the tools make it easy for them to communicate in this way (more and more computers have built in webcameras), so why not?

Video is changing the social media world – Facebook in particular.

Video from sites like YouTube used to be primarily for BROADcast, but more and more people are using web video as a personal message. Videos for mom, videos for friends and videos for a specific group of customers are making traditional forms of communication even more obsolete.

MediaPost’s “Online Spin” questions how to monetize this medium – I think a simple solution is videos with a lower third advertisement, as utilized by YouTube, but with Google Adsense Touch. When the video creator uploads / or links the video to the Social Media website, the title of their video, keywords in their profile, or tags that they associated with the video could be mined for ad content. Once the video is played, ads related to these words (e.g. “our vacation”, “Jamaica”, “Drew goes to Wal-Mart”, or “ice cream”) show up below the video when it is viewed.

I can see it now: Sofia’s next gift-opening video to grandma will be sponsored by Toys-R-Us. Makes the family moment that much more tender, huh? But seriously, the changing landscape of media is forcing advertisers to conform to new and unique ways of selling. And if Duncan Hines wants to piggyback on a cup cake-eating video to grandma – I’d say, “over the river and through the woods,” my friends.