Hiring an an ad employee

I talk a lot about what makes good advertising but don't mention much the process of actually getting a job in the advertising industry. Wieden and Kennedy (pronounced why-den not wee-den) is one of the larger ad agencies in the country with one of its main headquarters in Portland, Oregon. They are famous for producing the Old Spice campaign, among others. It's interesting to see the tasks (as a potential employee you can choose one or more to write a case study on) they ask potential employees to complete for the possibility of being a social strategist. Any takers?

• Challenge 1 - Create the best original Pinterest board dedicated to the sport of inline speed skating (NOT roller-hockey).

• Challenge 2 - Create and post an original piece of content to Reddit that then receives the most upvotes in a single week.

• Challenge 3 - Create and upload to SlideShare an original, in-depth competitive analysis of the Ed Hardy social media ecosystem.

• Challenge 4 - Get the most people to friend your mother or your father (or a parent-like figure in your life) on Facebook in a single week.

• Challenge 5 - Create an original (new) Twitter account and then use it to get the most followers in a week using any verbs you like, but only the following nouns: "BLUEFUDGE," "HAMMERPANTS" and "GREEK YOGURT."

• Challenge 6 - Create an original YouTube video that then receives the most plays in a single week using this script verbatim:
        #1: "Wait. What are you doing?"
        #2: "Trust me. This will be fine."
        #1: "Ok. Go ahead."

• Challenge 7 - Get recommendations on LinkedIn from at least three other people trying to get this job.

• Challenge 8 - Create the most reviewed recipe on allrecipes.com in a single week using cottage cheese as an ingredient. The reviews don't have to be good.

• Challenge 9 - Upload the most pictures of your armpit(s) to Instagram during the course of this challenge. The pictures must have your face in them to verify your identity and include the hashtag #mypits.

• Challenge 10 - Using Quora, give thought-out, meaningful answers to as many dream catcher-related questions as possible in a single week.

McDonalds trying to appear natural

McDonalds has been trying to follow the natural trend to make their products appear more natural in the public's eyes. Take a look at the article and video here as an example of how McDonalds Canada is showing consumers the production of the french fry from potato to McDonalds fast food joint. Yes, these fries may come from actual potatoes, but that does not make them healthy... that's a huge concern I have with commercials like this. Consumer thinks, oh, potatoes are healthy, but NO! Not after they are deep fried in vegetable oil. And then doused in salt. Yes, he shows that there is only about a tablespoon worth of salt on four medium fries, but this one tablespoon of salt contains over 2,000 milligrams of sodium - just about what a person is supposed to consume on average for an entire day. On a positive note, it is neat how it appears that the narrator is taking the consumer through actual consumer questions, but this still does nothing for me as far as improving the image of McDonalds. Okay, so your fries are made from potatoes. That doesn't make them healthy or natural. And besides, how many consumers are going to spend 5 minutes of their time (besides some of us marketing geeks) to watch about McDonalds french fries being produced from the potato to the fast food joint?

Lance Armstrong

Interesting story about Lance Armstrong. Accused of doping during his bike races at the Tour de France. Stripped of his medals. Stripped of his sponsorship by Nike. Voluntarily left the head administration at the Livestrong foundation. What does this tell us about marketing?

First, Nike was cautious to continue a retired cyclist who is also accused of doping in fear of the sponsorship hurting their brand. Yes, Nike has kept on other athletes in the past who have gone through similar situations, but the previous athletes were not nearing/at retirement and also had incidents that happened on the personal scene rather than the athletic scene. Though it is interesting that Nike continues to support the Livestrong foundation. Thus a reason that it is good Lance stepped down from the Livestrong foundation because otherwise it might appear that Nike is inadvertently supporting Lance by supporting Livestrong. I am happy to see that consumers are not revolting against the Livestrong foundation which is providing much help in cancer research and instead separating the two elements (Lance and the foundation). A word to the wise for companies - be ready for instances like this and no beforehand how you plan to handle them.

Facebook is like chairs

What are your thoughts on the recent commercial/support video that Facebook put out to celebrate their one billionth user (see video here)? They made an attempt at a strong emotional appeal to draw consumers close to Facebook and think the social power of Facebook is similar to many other connecting entities, even as great as the universe. However, they tried to hard in a short amount of time to make this successful. The vast majority of consumers finished watching the video with looks of perplexity on their faces. Is this what Facebook needs in the midst of their stock spiraling downward?

Oreo and AMC Theatres - a social media discussion

Oreo made a recent twitter post asking its followers if they ever sneaked Oreo cookies into a movie theatre (read more about it here). Then comes along AMC Theatres with the reply above: "NOT COOL, COOKIE". For a brand's twitter post, it's quite impressive to get 236 retweets and 66 favorites. Is taking on another brand the new way to get followers and interest in your brand's social media efforts? It can be but is definitely an area that needs to be considered cautiously. This series of tweets is tasteful, but there is a fine line between tasteful discussion and discussion that leaves a follower thinking the brand is vengeful. So nice job AMC and Oreo. It will be interesting to see if this goes anywhere from here.