Construction Machines Play Jenga With 600-Pound Blocks

In this two-minute clip from Ogilvy & Mather in New York, five Caterpillar machines play a giant game of Jenga using 600-pound wooden blocks, as I'm sure they often do at real construction sites all over the world. (From what I've seen of hard-hat areas in commercials lately, it's clear that all kinds of amusing stuff goes on.)

The work, part of Cat's "Built For It" campaign, showcases the machines' precision handling, strength and agility in an engaging way, and it's proven quite popular on YouTube, tallying 1.1 million views since its posting last week.

Of course, Volvo's already driven a similar road, producing high-octane b-to-b videos, with Van Damme doing the splits and hamsters driving trucks.

Still, it's fun to watch Cat's shiny yellow telehandlers and excavators push, pull and lift the huge game pieces. Will the 8-ton tower topple? WILL IT?! Careful … CAREFUL …

Actually, this would be a lot more compelling if the vehicles transformed into futuristic robots that engaged in metal-mangling combat. Or if a cat drove one of the Cats. Sigh. Maybe next time.

Via Fast Company.




Bud Light To Anchor 4000-Room Party Boat in NYC for Super Bowl XLVIII VIPs

When I worked on the Coors business at Integer back in the day, the brewery provided a lot of perks, primarily in the form of baseball, basketball, hockey and concert tickets. Broncos tickets were above my pay scale at the time.

Not surprisingly, the King of Beers plays the perks game at an even higher level.

Bud-Light-Hotel_party

According to NJ.com, Bud Light is leasing the 146,000-ton Norwegian Getaway for Super Bowl weekend 2014. The brand plans to use the ship as a floating hotel for 4,000 weekend guests.

At this time, the ship is still under construction in Germany. It’s scheduled to arrive in New York Jan. 26. The big game will be played February 2nd at MetLife Stadium. The game is being billed as “the first outdoor cold weather Super Bowl.”

Sadly, Joe Six-Pack won’t be able to book a room on the party boat — rooms are reserved for Bud Light VIPs, including key distributors and retailers.

David Daniels, marketing director for Bud Light speaking to ROI said, “An experience like this drives brand health and equity, and that will translate into sales long-term.”

You might wonder why a B2B event like this would impact sales. In beer, as in many things, you need shelf space at retail. No shelf space, no sales.

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Social Gets Some Big Time Face Time @Dreamforce 2013

Heads up SFO. A small city of people are flying in for Dreamforce, the annual user conference put on by Salesforce.com in San Francisco this week.

According to reports, some of the Dreamforce badge wearers will be seeking information on how to incorporate social media marketing and social selling into their practice. Others may be looking for a good party to attend. I hear Green Day is performing at a VIP function. How punk rock is that?

According to USA TODAY’s preview piece on the conference, L’Oreal began using new marketing and analysis tools Salesforce rolled out this year.

The software helps automate the process of discovering the interests of existing customers, then deciding which promotions to send to their social media accounts, via text or video ads.

L’Oreal brand managers used it to sign up thousands of hair salon owners in the U.S., who in turn used it to create thousands of Facebook pages that were peppered with social media ads for shampoos and conditioners.

I am a huge fan of discovering the interests of existing customers. That’s the fuel on which marketing runs. But I will admit to getting hung up a bit with the idea that software will effectively automate the process. I’m not saying software does not work in this capacity, or that this particular software as a service is not needed. Rather, I want to question which sales and marketing processes can and should be automated, and which work best when done manually.

I know this much, an email does not equal a phone call and a phone call does not equal a face-to-face meeting. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter, and possibly include said thoughts in an upcoming feature article.

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One Brand, Multiple Markets: Century Link Turns In Rough Mix

My favorite NFL team plays home games at Century Link Field.

The communications technology company also has a large presence in Omaha, my hometown. Therefore, I want to like Century Link, but a print ad like this subtracts several points from the “brand love” scorecard.

bad print ad

Worse than the say-nothing-to-no-one use of stock photography here, are phrases like “visionary cloud infrastructure” and “hosted IT solutions.” This copy is dead on arrival.

Sure, somebody somewhere does care about such things. Send these very fine buyers direct mail. When you opt to run a magazine ad or a TV spot, you’re speaking to a mass consumer audience who has little knowledge of, or concern for, your visionary cloud infrastructure and hosted IT solutions.

In this case, the problem is even worse given that Century Link is also a consumer brand, providing broadband, entertainment and voice services to millions of consumers across the U.S.

Say you are watching NFL football and you see this B2B spot:

Now compare and contrast the above with the following consumer offering?

The consumer spot appeals to me. What will I do with my gig?

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Oracle Sails Into Brand Sponsorship History

Oracle is no longer Oracle the tech giant run by an egomaniac. Through the power of sports (and sponsorship)–America’s Cup Sailing, in this instance–Oracle is now much better known as ORACLE TEAM USA. And ORACLE TEAM USA, founded on Aug. 11, 2000 by Larry Ellison, is a much friendlier front for the company.

Forget for a second about Oracle and its products, and look instead at these powerful brand impressions:

Oracle specializes in computer hardware systems and enterprise software products, particularly its own brands of database management systems. But the brand, as we’ve just seen, is on another page. It’s black, sexy and fast.

Add Puma, Tag Heuer and the American flag to the mix, and it’s all the more fashionable. Plus, when you consider the futuristic yacht design at the center of the sport today, and you set the action in San Francisco Bay, what you get is an attractive picture and gratitude to Oracle for providing it.

By the way, Louis Vuitton is the sponsor of America’s Cup, while Oracle is the Sponsor of TEAM USA. Take a look at some of the action, as New Zealand looks to challenge TEAM USA for the cup.

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Shipping Titan Finds Its Brand Voice And Its Footing In Social Media

What does a Danish shipping magnate want with transparency and social media storytelling? Nothing, according to its management team in Copenhagen. That is, until the team was turned around by Anna Granholm-Brun, corporate brand manager at Maersk Group.

According to MIT Sloan Management Review, California-native Granholm-Brun has been with Maersk for four and a half years, helping the company embrace a new social savvy. She developed the company’s first social media strategy with C-suite support and has grown Maersk’s social community. The company has over 1.45 million likes for the Maersk Facebook page alone and often gets over 100,000 views of its corporate videos at the Maersk YouTube channel.

Granholm-Brun said social media marketing was at first a tough sell internally. “Executives don’t have a lot of time, so it was a matter of making sure that results and findings within social media are spoken to them in a language that they pick up on — that is, we need to point out the business case.”

Ah, the business case. Here’s Maersk’s “business case” for building the world’s largest and most efficient ship.

The business case also comes down to people, and Maersk has 152,000 employees (and potential brand ambassadors) around the globe to call on.

Granholm-Brun says, “What we end up doing is telling the story of what Maersk does and how we do it and the values that we live by through the very trustworthy and honest voices of the people who work for us.”

It is safe to say, “brand voice” is no longer something best whipped up in an ad agency brainstorm. Rather, a real living brand voice — one with resonance and power — is an amalgamation of the human voices who work at the company. That’s the well, and a smart agency or internal marketing team will dip its pail there.

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KPMG And Phil Mickelson Make History and Headlines Together

It was a good day in golf. The good guy, Phil Mickelson, shot four birdies through the last six holes today to win the British Open at Muirfield, an historic course and one that eats lesser men alive.

phil-mickelson-wins-so-do-sponsors

It was also a good day for KPMG the global audit, tax and advisory firm with headquarters in the Netherlands. As you may have noted, Mickelson is sponsored by the Big Four auditor. The firm’s call letters are in fact emblazoned across the man’s visor, as is the custom today.

KPMG’s interest in golf also extends to Golf Business Community, a site the firm maintains for “individuals within the golf industry who are interested in building and maintaining relationships, and accessing golf research and golf industry news.”

This isn’t Nike Golf or Puma Golf mind you, this is a buttoned down firm of auditors who come in and look at your firm’s books to see where the leaks are. Scary suits, these guys are. No doubt, that’s why they work to cultivate a friendlier image via clear and liberal support for the great game of golf (which happens to be played by lots of rich white men in need of consulting services).

KPMG also added LPGA champion and #2 ranked player Stacy Lewis to its roster of sponsored players last spring. As part of the agreement with KPMG, Lewis will now wear the KPMG logo on her golf shirt and shirt collar during all of her golf-related appearances.

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Evolving your Business with a Financial Loan the easy way

5359If you are like most entrepreneurs you may have started your business with nothing but your self, a computer, and a business model. You have met success and are looking to grow and expand your reach. However, with business growth comes the need for necessities such as an office space, employees or perhaps a company car. In order to ensure the success of your brand and business reputation you need to invest, but the funds may not be there. Financial lenders like advancefundsnetwork.com provide a variety of services to help new and expanding businesses while playing working roles in helping to make your success skyrocket into new frontiers.

Options

Finding the right type of loan to apply for may sound like an overwhelming endeavor, but in reality this process is simple. Understanding the criteria for each loan type will not only make the process easier for you, it will save you time that might be spent applying for loans you don’t quality for. But at the end of the day you can always phone a professional lender to speak with you about your options. In the meantime, here are 2 of the most popular business loan types:

  • Unsecured loan or credit line: These types of loans aren’t backed by any collateral and require that the applicant have exemplary credit or a business with a long established history. These loans are generally harder to get approved for, as the lenders take on a certain level of risk by not having anything to back the loan except for the applicant’s word he will repay it.
  • Secured loan or credit line: This is a very common type of business loan to apply for. As long as the applicant has good credit, proof of acceptable income, and collateral, one generally gets approved. In terms of collateral most business owners will put up their home or their business property to back the loan.

If you are in need of a smaller amount of cash, then you may want to nix these options altogether. Sometimes when one is expanding their business, they simply need to make upgrades to computer equipment or stock more inventories. If this is your case, consider a merchant cash advance.

Cash in hand

A merchant cash advance serves many purposes to the needs of an expanding business. For example, some business owners may need to invest in a company car but their credit dictates a down payment at the dealership. Often funds are tied up in payroll or in stocking inventory. This is when the merchant cash advance is a great option, as extra funds can become available to you within 24 hours with no credit check.

Know your options

According to ‘Entrepreneur’, getting a business loan can be complicated, as the money is out there, but there are so many loan types that it is easy to apply for the wrong kind. Explore your options and know which loans you qualify for before you take time and effort to apply for them.

Image source: http://www.finloans.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Financing-Business-loans.gif

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