The Volkswagen Art Commercial Creates Online Buzz

This campaign done by Red Urban is a fantastic example of branding and buzz creation, showing that advertising is not always about the hard sell. The name of this campaign is "Driving Can Be Beautiful." Photographers used long exposure to capture images created by the lights on the Jetti GLI.

Next, they created make-shift art galleries in random areas around Canada and just let people steal their stuff. The point was to create buzz and that is exactly what happened. As you can see in the video, people were stirring online with excitement. What a great way to get be people talking about your company, and what a great way to associate your brand with style and beauty. Hats off to the creative people involved.

Leave your comments below. I would love to hear about any experiences you may have had with this. And oh yeah, apparently this campaign isn't over, so keep your eyes peeled.

For more info and to see the full credits go here.

The Cameroon Flag and The Togo Flag

Cameroon

The Cameroon flag was established May 20, 1975. This was after Cameroon became a unitary state. It was a part of France until gaining its independence in 1960. The flag is broken up into three main parts. The left third of the flag is a green vertical stripe. The right third is a yellow vertical strip and the middle third is a red vertical stripe with a yellow star in the middle. The green is representative of a of the lush, rich forests and vegetation of the southern region of the country. It is also said to represent the hope of the future. The red represents independence and unity. The yellow stands for the savannas in the north and the sun, which is their source of happiness. The star also represents the country’s unity. The colors are pan-African and Cameroon is only the second modern African state to use them.

Togo

This flag is similar to the Cameroon flag in that it also was established when it gained independence from France. This took place on April 27, 1960. The Togo flag also contains the pan-African colors, but they are arranged differently. There are five stripes alternating with green and yellow. There is a red box in the upper left-hand corner that contains a white star in the middle. The red on the Togo Flag is symbolic of the loyalty and patriotism the people should feel towards their country. The green shows hope, fertility, and agriculture. The yellow is representative of mineral wealth and faith in the ability of hard work and strength to bring prosperity. The white star represents life, purity, peace, dignity, and Togo’s independence. In addition, there are five stripes to show the five distinct geographical regions of the nation.

The Social Network: An Ethical Response

I felt like the movie brings up a clear ethical dilemma. There was a debate about whether or not Mark Zuckerberg stole a portion of his idea from the Winklevoss twins. This is an issue of intellectual property. If somebody comes up with an idea, then they are entitled to that concept and any financial gain that comes from its use. Often times, multiple people will have the same idea and only one implements the idea. If those people never communicated with each other about their idea, there is no moral dilemma. The rule of first come, first serve applies. The problem arises when one individual knowingly uses another individual’s idea.

The Winklevoss twins came up with The Harvard Connection and asked Zuckerberg to partner with them. He never did, but decided to create his own site called The Facebook. The debate revolves around how similar the two sites are, if at all. It is proven that the sites do not share any coding, so from a programming standpoint Zuckerberg is in the clear. But that could be argued as physical property. This is a question of intellectual property. If Jim invents the chair using maple wood, and Alex invents the same chair using oak, it is still the same idea.

So in order to determine if the idea was stolen we have to compare the concept of the two sites. The Harvard Connection was intended to help people connect, as was Facebook, but its purpose was geared more towards dating. Facebook’s intentions were to capture the entire social experience, not just dating. The Harvard Connection wanted to capitalize on the feeling of exclusivity, which is certainly the route Facebook took in its early launching period. We can see that the ideas are both very similar and, at the same, fundamentally different.

I believe Zuckerberg does owe them something. It would appear they were his inspiration and they paved the way for his idea to take hold. I also think the original settlement of $65 million dollars and some stock in Facebook is reasonable considering their apparent contribution. I believe the most ethical scenario would have been for Zuckerberg to approach the Winklevoss twins and explain the direction he wished to go. If they didn’t like it, they could have parted ways and they wouldn’t have had any claim to the Facebook concept.

Morning Glory: An Ethical Review

The ethical issue involved with the movie “Morning Glory” was fluff vs. news. The morning news shows are known for their soft entertainment value and very little for their actual hard news. The debate is whether it is okay for a news program to run stories that are based purely on getting the ratings.

I feel that capitalism gives our society a unique democratic opportunity. Because the success of a television program is based on its ratings, we are, in a way, voting on the programming they put on for us to watch. Meaning, if we thought what they were doing was unethical and chose not to watch, they wouldn’t get the ratings, and advertisers wouldn’t pay for time. In this case, the stations would either have to change or they would go out of business. This means the programming we see on TV is a direct result of what the general population wants to see. It is our own fault.

To me, this is all an issue of labels. Is it wrong to play a program that is just for entertainment? Of course not, but is it okay to do that and call it news? Maybe the real issue is the fact that these shows are labeled morning news. If we started calling them morning gossip, or morning mindless wake up time, maybe there would be less of a debate. There are plenty of opportunities to get hard news, and if that is what we really want than we need to pay more attention to it. One fear I have is hard news becoming so unprofitable it stops being produced. I wouldn’t, however, blame the morning news for this. I would look at myself and my community and wonder why we took good journalism and hard facts for granted.

The First Press Release

The news release is very common nowadays, but the first press release was created October 28, 1906. It was written by Ivy Lee after the a Pennsylvania Railroad car jumped a trestle in Atlantic City, NJ and fell into the Thoroughfare creek.

Later that day Lee, who is now commonly considered the father of modern PR, wrote the first press release. It was difficult to convince Pennsylvania Railroad to release a public statement, but he was able to do it. Not only that, but he also got them to set up a railroad for the press that led to the scene of the accident.

The Reaction

This was the first time a company had done anything like this, so they were not sure what the media and public reaction would be. The feedback was extremely positive. The company was praised for its openness and honesty, and The New York Times published the public address verbatim, which is almost unheard of for PR practitioners today.

Ivy Lee tried this new approach again when a coal operating company went on strike. This time the media did not respond as favorable. They angrily declared that it was a “ad disguised as news,” and it was meant to sway the news coverage.

Principles

Lee issued a declaration addressing this issue, and is summarized as follows:

• The work is done openly
• Its aim is to supply news
• The media is under no obligation to use it
• It is accurate
• It is verifiable

The press release has come along way since then, but these principles still apply to modern day PR practitioners. Yes, it is true that the goal is to receive positive media coverage, but everything that is said must be true and newsworthy or the likely hood of getting any part of the release published is minimal. We have many more tools available to us nowadays. Learn about 5 ways to use Twitter.

5 Ways to Use Twitter

People always ask what exactly Twitter is. A lot of times people respond by saying it is like Facebook with just a status. In a really simple explanation that's true, but it is so much more than that.

Twitter can be used as an effective tool for a variety of different things. It can be anything from a promotional tool to a search engine filter.

5 Uses For Twitter

Search Engine Filter- Go on Twitter and find an expert in something you are interested in. If you want to learn about website design, than find someone who tweets all about it. Once you find the right person to follow you will get a lot of good information directly from someone who is doing all the research work.

Business Promotion- If you have a business, Twitter is great way to get exposure and keep your customer up-to-date on all your latest deals and announcements.

Follow People Of Interest- If you are a celebrity gossip junky than Twitter was designed for you. Celebrities tweet and people follow.

Site Traffic- If you have a blog, business site or anything online, this is great way to get traffic to your site. Just get a lot of followers, write interesting tweets, and link to your site. Learn about getting site traffic with Twitter here.

Quick Communication- As we have seen from the recent activity in Egypt, news can travel faster than you can say 'tweet.' If you have information you want to get out quick, than this is a good route to take.