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Thank you all sincerely from the bottom of this advertising geeks heart.

One Love!

Tony

A new theory I am fumbling with involves the talk of the new Major Leauge 3 movie, which is what Charlie insists on calling it, even though the third film was Major League: Back to the Minors.  Perhaps Charlie is getting into a role as a modernized “Wild Thing” who will blossom onto the big screen as a result of his character development he’s been going through with all the wind he’s been blowing.

Another supporting point to my theory that this is a planned, yet maniac execution to generate explosive attention from consumers, involves reports from TMZ that Sheen is trying to sell publishing rights to a book depicting the events during his time on Two and a Half Men that led him to the breaking point. Sheen is asking for a starting range of $10million for the publishing rights to what he has currently titled, When the Laughter Stopped.

The laughter most certainly has not stopped but again I believe he’s decided to find an alternate way to get out of a show he’s been doing for 8 seasons since September 22, 2003.  Charlie is ready to move onto bigger and better things and he’s proving that people want to hear what he has to say regardless of how moronic, demonic, or supersonic the message is.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see like Joan Rivers tweeted,…”I have no idea what the hell is going on, but can’t wait to see how it ends.”

Charlie Sheen is performing social media supernova!

Interestingly enough, as I was playing with the obnoxiously entertaining Live The Sheen Dream, I had a light bulb moment as I realized how myriad hilarious quotes were created throughout his interviews.  The quantity of quotes generated in such a short time from these interviews seems almost purposeful. Purposeful, in such a manner that they have had the power to create an extraordinary social media supernova. Before today there was not an existing “verified” @CharlieSheen twitter account in existence, later today @CharlieSheen “verified” appeared in the twitterverse.  At this moment, 11:42PM Mar 1, 2011, he has, 531,400 followers.  Incredible I must say.

He has posted a total of three tweets over the past 2 hours.  His first two posts are tagged with #winning, could it be that he’s trying to “WIN” at pulling off one of the most outrageous publicity stunts, of all time?  I have an inkling this is all part of a plan.  As I continued to click through the quotes of Live The Sheen Dream I realized another thing, these quotes were generating upwards of 150-170k likes via the Facebook “Like” button and others were being tweeted anywhere from 5,000 up to 9,000, so far. It’s an amazing feat in such a short period of time, and you can only imagine it’ll continue to go up if he continues to deliver. I believe this really is calculated, Charlie Sheen is creating an epic social presence in record breaking fashion.  Sure it’s without question, a very absurd manner in which he’s acquiring his grandiose recognition but as of now its working.

The oddest thing is there is a very mixed feeling by people about how Charlie is conducting himself, some read his quotes and scream brilliance, others grunt in disbelief, we laughed at the obnoxiousness but questioned was this being done on purpose? Maybe this man is trying to prove a point. I don’t know that I could believe he’ll stay off the drugs, but what’s more important is what will happen next.

You can get your T-shirts, and all other souvenir already with Sheen’s quotes. Wonderful, now he’ll have walking billboards making his name and insane message a vehicle for teenagers, and immature young adults alike. The man wants 3million dollars per episode if the show goes back on air, time will tell what happens there. Charlie has definitely created what I am dubbing a social media supernova, new products, stores, websites, advertising, and publicity has taken over the interwebs and it’s quites impressive.

Oh and about the Chuck title reference, I made a random connection to the old Chuck Norris quotes that were a meme back in my undergrad days at UIC. It’s almost as if the Charlie Sheen quotes will be the equivalent to the Norris quotes that used to round-house us in the face.

UPDATE:

Charlie Sheen’s twitter has now been up for almost 24hrs and he’s narrowing in on the 1million follower mark.  He tweeted 13 minutes ago (as of 7:20PM Mar 2, 2011) “In all sincerity…Thank you Twitter community for the warm reception & the followers that helped me get to 1M in 24hours!!! #teamsheen.” Now as I was saying, this all seems very calculated.

A new theory I am fumbling with involves the talk of the new Major Leauge 3 movie, which is what Charlie insists on calling it, even though the third film was Major League: Back to the Minors.  Perhaps Charlie is getting into a role as a modernized “Wild Thing” who will blossom onto the big screen as a result of his character development he’s been going through with all the wind he’s been blowing.

Million Followers in 24 Hours

Another supporting point to my theory that this is a planned, yet maniac execution to generate explosive attention from consumers, involves reports from TMZ that Sheen is trying to sell publishing rights to a book depicting the events during his time on Two and a Half Men that led him to the breaking point. Sheen is asking for a starting range of $10million for the publishing rights to what he has currently titled, When the Laughter Stopped.

The laughter most certainly has not stopped but again I believe he’s decided to find an alternate way to get out of a show he’s been doing for 8 seasons since September 22, 2003.  Charlie is ready to move onto bigger and better things and he’s proving that people want to hear what he has to say regardless of how moronic, demonic, or supersonic the message is.

I guess we’ll just have to wait and see like Joan Rivers tweeted,…”I have no idea what the hell is going on, but can’t wait to see how it ends.”

One Love,

Anthony J Matesi

Now I’ve been in graduate school trying to expand my knowledge of marketing through DePaul’s Public Relations and Advertising program.  Today we were presented to about a startup company, known as Pocket Literacy Coach, by the CEO Dr. Drew.  The point of this presentation was for him to describe his company, what it does, and what it is they are essentially looking for from us.  During this presentation and the q&a that followed, it hit me that too many great ideas never come full circle, not because the idea is half baked, but because their marketing strategy hasn’t spent any time in the oven.

Dr. Drew is a brilliant man and has come up with a great service that will bring children and their parent’s interaction and development to a whole new level if implemented properly.  Dr. Drew has an incredible service that parents can sign up for at a very low monthly cost.  In return for the small fee, parents of young children (ages 2-6) will be sent text messages daily that will provide ideas, activities, and lessons that can help develop the child’s literacy.  The program is designed to be an extension of standard education programs and not as a replacement.  Without going into too much detail they have essentially developed a way to keep parents properly engaged with their children while developing vital skills that are sometimes overlooked, especially in today’s world.

So Dr. Drew has this great service, the ability to bring great lessons and even reminders to parents, which can help educate not only the child but also the parent.  The kids learn the skills they need to grow and develop in the world and the parents learn how to be better parents and even more so how to be better teachers.   Seems like something everyone with a young child should want to join and become a part of right? Who wouldn’t want their job of being a parent made a little simpler?  I think it’s safe to say in this busy world people will take all the help they can get especially when it comes to doing the most difficult job in the world, raising a child. Sadly after the q&a it became blindingly clear what our purpose as a class was…we have to be his marketing, we have to develop something to get his company truly started because as of now its basically a half baked idea that very few know about.

Pocket Literacy coach is a brilliant idea developed very deeply but even with all the development into how it works and what happens in the background it has no development in terms of how to market it.  They know who they wanted their original target market to be, but that soon changed when they realized people in that market couldn’t afford this type of service.  With the shift in target markets they seem to have a little more direction but is it enough?  To be short no its not.  They need a plan and they need to execute it.  Entrepreneurship is only as good as the marketing that helps bring the idea to the masses.  This idea is brilliant but as it stands they have nothing out there that is really going to make them known. Their Facebook page has around 200 fans and their twitter account has a mere 40 something followers.  Two of the most useful marketing tools ever to grace the world of advertising and public relations and they are not even trying to promote themselves in the slightest through these no-brainer outlets.  Thankfully we will be working on developing an integrated marketing campaign for this service, these are the ideas that should be well known and adopted quickly.

I’m excited to see where this small startup will be this time next year. I think it has the potential to go far, it just needs the proper strategy.

So with that said what do you think, how important is marketing to entrepreneurship? Is marketing the key to fully baking an entrepreneurial idea? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Its a simple concept, yet so effective…Old Spice is creating more social media content with these youtube video responses that link back to facebook and twitter and other social outlets. Very impressive Old Spice, kudos to you! I hope more companies pick up on this sort of response effort, very clever.

The deal is a 60-day money back guarantee. You like the car you keep it, but  if not you have 60 days to return it.  Some say this is in anticipation to other new minivans being released this year from competitors like, Toyota and Honda. From what I hear the 60 day deal is not so simple when it comes to the return part but that isn’t what irks me about their strategy, what irks me is much deeper than that.

Now I understand the minivan is not my vehicle type and therefore I am not the target market, however, I was under the impression that minivan’s were dying their slow death and being more or less phased out by most companies in favor of new flavors such as cross-overs and smaller SUVs (since we know most of the large ones died during the carpocalypse).  Why would a company pump money into advertising a dying platform and whats more they advertise it in such a manner that insinuates that you’d be a moron not to love their van.

Tagline: The “You won’t need 60 days to decide but we’ll give it to you anyway” event.

You’re right I won’t need 60 days to decide because I would never come in and purchase your vehicle anyway.

But this isn’t even what is really truly bothering me.  At this point you’re probably confused why the subject is “Dodge doin da drugs?” Well see below and you’ll understand.

Seriously??? Jalopnik put it best Reservoir Dogs, meets A Clockwork Orange, combined with “lovable” furries? I’m so lost… At what point in the meeting did someone start popping mushrooms and declare, “I’ve got it! Ok so we’ll take what looks like a scene from Reservoir Dogs, ya dig? Next combine that with A Clockwork Orange….and here’s the cherry on top. Furry masks for mice, cats, and dogs!” Honestly where do they even think you can go with this. Perhaps I am missing something (I’m not  their target audience, after all) but this just makes no sense and seems like something some druggie thought up during their last trip to unicorn island.

Dodge…I don’t get it. And honestly I don’t want to, minivans are monstrosities that I refuse to drive no matter how many children I end up being cursed with after this rant.

I have been actually avoiding a few movies simply out of my annoyance with the film industries need to over use this 3D gimmick in everything lately. However there was one movie that I did cave in and just HAD to go see when it was released a couple weekends ago and of course that would be Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. Let me say that was a phenomenal movie but even after seeing it I can honestly say it’d be just as amazing (and I am hoping to confirm this sometime this week) in standard 2D glory.

I wonder how long will this gimmick last? It’s not the first time producers have used 3D as a way to drive ticket sales at box offices, but seriously how long will that work once the hype of the return to 3D wears off, or worse when 3D HDTVs finally make it into homes and people have the full capability of properly watching a 3D movie comfortably from their couch. Here I even continue to question the strength of the capability, will that be a failed attempt at bringing this gimmicky technique into homes, who is really going to want to waste money on a new tv just so they can watch the handful of new movies that were in 3D? I definitely don’t plan on jumping on the train and I am usually one of the geeky guys that always needs to have new technologies. I’m starting to question tech development in general though now but that would be another topic completely, (see my reaction to the iPad).

What it comes down to is will people continue to fall for the fun nature of 3D films or will they eventually wise up and realize that what makes a GREAT film are the same things that always have, fascinating story, with a sound plot, good character development and quality settings. The basics are what make a movie good not cheap marketing gimmicks that are used to drive people to the box office because that is the only place (as of now) you can easily see these films in their full form. I believe everything will always come back to the basics, even marketing in the social media world (read more about my feelings on that here). I guess we’ll just have to see if this FAD fades away as I hope it will. What are your feelings on the 3D marketing gimmick? Shout it out in the comments!

Ok this is going to be a very short blog and I’ll be writing another that will actually be used for Allan’s PR class during lunch, but honestly who the hell approved of this advertisement spotted in an AT&T store? I mean I understand they are trying to create a cool little combination of the words but really “I she-mail”? Schedule doesn’t even sound like she when said. Perhaps this was done intentionally to get attention but honestly I must ask how do things like this get approved. I am struggling to see how this can be a positive reinforcement of a brand. AT&T shame on you for branding this poor guy as a she-male! Sometimes I really question how people get their jobs in this industry when they make stupid decisions like this one. So now I ask what is your opinion of this ridiculous attempt to create a hermapha-phone? (yes I just made that up, hopefully its not too politically incorrect) Anyways share your thought in the comments.