Are we out of new ideas?

Wisconsin's new slogan faces some pushback

After talking with a fellow Wisconsinite, we discussed the new slogan for Wisconsin. Yes, there are many slogans that could be used, but the State of Wisconsin tries to promote themselves and they are wanting for a slogan that sticks.

The problem is that the slogan has been used before, "Live like you mean it." The problem is that Bacardi has already used the phrase in marketing campaigns. Is it ok for a state slogan to be the same as a former slogan for a alcohol brand?

This was a question that I took to my senior level marketing students. I asked them, is it ok for anyone to reuse the slogan from a business? Then, what about from an alcohol company?

The results were not shocking. Many students felt that a company should not reuse a slogan of recent history. They also stated that if a company reuses a slogan, then any negative feelings (or positive) would be inherited by the new company. I then shared the information on Wisconsin and many students were shocked, but admitted that they never knew that it was the slogan for Bacardi.

Slogans?

I often struggle in class when it comes to a game that is educational enough in class. Recently I came across Ad Slogans. The I thought back to the numerous times that I say "Adverteasing" at a local thrift store (I go there to pick up items to resell on eBay). Looking at the game, you will notice that students and perhaps even yourself will not know what company is advertising.

Looking at Ad Slogans, it can provide you with the necessary break from the normal grind to keep students focused. They have voted the best slogans, but basically I see it as a huge slogan bank, which can be nice to have and can create some great discussions with students.

Who Says Science Can Have All the Fun

Experiments are something that should not stay in the science class room. Here are two examples of the random experiments regarding Facebook that I have done in my class.

1. Behavioral Targeting
After a class discussion about behavioral targeting I challenged my students to go their Facebook page and change their personal information and see if they noticed a difference in the ads appearing on their home page. The students did find this to be true and were amazed at how quickly ads can change when you change your personal information on a social networking site.

2. Is Facebook Too Cliche?
I hear students and marketers talk about how they will use social media sites to promote their product / store / etc… Sure it is a great low cost concept that could generate a large return but is it becoming too cliché? With this in mind, I asked one class of 32 students to go home and change their status to say something along the lines about how they were excited to get a free lanyard in room 126 tomorrow. I informed the class that this would give us a good idea how effective Facebook is in regards to creating buzz about a product.

We found that of the total students only 9 went home and changed their status. The next morning by 7 AM I had one student stop by and ask for a free lanyard. Through out the day I had two others stop by. Once it was time for class to start I asked the students if they had heard other students talking about it. The nine students who changed their status update said it generated seven wall posts, six text messages, and five people stopping them in school to see if they were still available.

We then did a rough estimate and calculated it reached approximately 2500 other Facebook members. Once this was calculated the students quickly pointed out that this in not a true number since some people don’t look at their page every day, they could not go to our school, etc… I was very excited to see the students grasp this concept.

I then asked the students what it would have done if we had posted this message for say 5-days in advance of giving out the lanyards. How many actual people would that have touched? I will save that for the next experiment.

I thought this was a great way to show how buzz marketing can work and it proved how it can be effective for a business (more so chain companies) because it doesn’t matter where you live you can still go to a store or restaurant.

This is just some of the fun random experiments that I often times pull out of mid air and do in my marketing classes. I realize the sample size is too small to give this any validity but it was fun and the students seem to like doing this.

Three great sites

Here are three great websites providing the latest marketing and branding information. These sites will provide you with the more interesting non main stream advertising and branding news stories. I use these sites a lot to get my "marketing stories" which is how I begin class everyday. Click on the images below to be redirected and enjoy!

Keeping Current

After debriefing with my students that attended the Minnesota State DECA Conference, I had them fill out a short survey. Immediately following the conference, I felt that it was the best conference that I have been apart of for student leadership and responsibility.

One of my personal beliefs is that if you give the students respect, they will give it back. Some other advisors said that I was crazy for ALL (94) my students have my cell phone number. It came in handy because if there was a student that needed to talk to me, they were able to do that.

What I did different this conference is I created a list on my phone using PowerSMS. PowerSMS is a free program that allowed me to create and send the same message to all students. This came in handy when reminding students about bus times, seating assignments and floor meetings.

Overwhelmingly, students have said that they liked it a lot. It allowed the students to have the agenda in their pocket and be on time to meetings, photos and meals. When talking with the students, they loved that I took the initiative to get to their level. This spoke highly and I am planning on continuing. I don't think that we should resist technology, but we should embrace it and use it to our advantage. I just wish schools were not anti-technology and thought about how they could use it, such as daily announcements, or review questions.

Just my thoughts.

Cotinuing With the Theme of Good Content

Part of my Sunday morning routine includes an hour and a half with Charles Osgood watching CBS Sunday Morning. I have been doing this for the better part of 8 years since I got out of college. The sound of trumpets and the soothing sound of Osgood's voice took on a new meaning to me yesterday morning.

As I was enjoying a cup of coffee and thinking about this up coming week and what / how I want to teach a segment came on about working conditions at a company that makes 100's of different products and how the leadership runs the company. It was a great clip. So great that I am including it in my careers discussion in my Personal Finance class. This really opened my eyes to see that CBS Sunday Morning has many segments that are appropriate and great for the Business and Marketing Classroom. There was another segment on sales and whether they work or not. I am embedding the clip I am going to use.

Check it out next Sunday Morning.


Watch CBS Videos Online

Ideas for Business & Management

If you haven’t had the chance to stop by the Business Week website at businessweek.com, I highly recommend it!  There is a wealth of articles, information, and video clips to help keep us current and supplement our lessons plans.

What It Is To Be...

This video was shown at a staff meeting earlier this year. Even though this clip is about the Battle of Gettysburg it really made me think about business and marketing educators.


If you think about it...

• We keep moving on every day never looking back only looking forward despite what may be waiting for us.


• We all came into teaching for different reason but all of us believe in the value of the content we teach and the importance of it.


• We have the option to quit fighting for our educational beliefs but we never chose that option.


• We are always teaching something new to hopefully inspire someone new each day.


• We have to keep fighting for each other working together more often to make our classrooms even better providing more value to our students.

Top 10 Marketing Books of All Time

Advertising Age just released its top 10 media and marketing books of all time. Click here to view the entire list

Personally, I was suprised Purple Cow was not on the list.

What books do you feel should be on the list that are not listed.