Captain Digital

Random musings on politics, society, and pop culture from the Internet's marketing curmudgeon.

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Marketing

A couple of (probably stupid) ideas…

…courtesy of my liberal arts (i.e.: lack of science) education…

IDEA #1. Back in the days before central air conditioning and refrigeration made it possible to live comfortably through summers in the South, one enterprising entrepreneur floated a huge iceberg from the northern Atlantic down to the Gulf of Mexico. The purpose? Provide inexpensive ice for evaporative coolers, which at the time were the only way to cool a room. He made a fortune.

I understand from the sound-byte journalism on TV that the reason that tropical storms that cross into the Gulf become hurricanes is due to the warm waters in the Gulf. (It’s why the eco-Nazis try to convince us all that hurricanes are a lot worse due to ‘global warming.’) [Read more…] about A couple of (probably stupid) ideas…

A little experiment in musicial (self-)marketing.

Recently, I’ve gotten restless, and I’ve decided to begin playing music professionally again. Trouble is, I don’t have a lot of contacts here in Amarillo. So I’ve decided to apply the same techniques I recommend to my marketing clients to my own situation. That means I’ve got to find ways to get myself noticed around town. What you see at the left here is a poster I whipped up in an hour or so this evening. I’ve secured a one-night gig – kind of a “let’s see if this works” kind of thing. Obviously, I’d like this to turn into a regular gig. So I’m doing everything I know how to do to make that happen. First, we’ll start with promotions. I’m going to print several of these posters and give them to Pizza Hut. I figure that the combination of a nice-looking poster along with taking the initiative to promote my appearance there will go a long way towards helping them see the possibilities. It won’t cost me much to do it, and it will help serve my larger goal of getting my name out there as a musician in Amarillo. With only two days before the gig, I don’t have much time to self-promote, but I figure that anything I can do is better than sitting around and waiting for something good to happen. [Read more…] about A little experiment in musicial (self-)marketing.

A little blogging news.

grokmediaI’m a big fan of blogging. Part of it is that I’m a writer – copywriting, techincal writing, correspondence, you name it. (Mrs. Digital keeps bugging me about writing the next Great American Novel. We’ll see.) Anyway, I’ve been gratified by the responses I’ve gotten, as well as the ever-increasing number of people that are reading my blog. Blogging is a lot like anything else you do – the more you put into it, the more you get out of it. One of the things I’ve learned, is that if you put a little work into promoting your blog with the blog aggregators and social networking services, you’ll dramatically increase the number of people that know about your blog – and if it’s any good, the number of people reading it. [Read more…] about A little blogging news.

Perception IS Reality.

What is real? That’s really the most fundamental question, isn’t it? If we can’t trust our senses, we cannot tell what’s real from what’s not. And that brings us, campers, to the true nature of marketing – perception versus reality.

I once worked for a guy who was a brilliant marketer – a true natural. His favorite aphorism was “Perception IS reality.” His point was that your view of reality is colored by your belief system and, therefore, your perceptions…ergo, perception IS your reality. It follows then, that it doesn’t matter what reality is – it matters only what your audience PERCEIVES reality to be.

Think about the implications of this for a second. They are staggering. [Read more…] about Perception IS Reality.

BAND-AID® Marketing.

My kid loves BAND-AIDs. She believes that, any time she’s wounded, a BAND-AID strip will make it better. I’m not talking about bleeding, here – I mean, if she sprains her finger, the dog steps on her foot, or if she has a stiff neck – a BAND-AID will fix her right up. My apologies to the fine folks at Johnson & Johnson, but that ain’t necessisarily so. Don’t get me wrong…adhesive bandages serve a useful purpose in the healing process, but they are not the one-size-fits-all, universal cure that my daughter would have me believe. (If they were, I wouldn’t mind our anual expenditures for BAND-AIDs, which seems to be a significant portion of the family debt, since she’s taken to putting them on EVERYTHING…) [Read more…] about BAND-AID® Marketing.

EUReKa!…I think they’re on to something.

I love creative things. In particular, I’ve always loved science fiction (which gives writers a way to violate reality to serve their story ideas) and humor (which requires both creativity and intelligence to do really well). So when the SciFi channel launched EUReKA, a show that combines sicence fiction with humor, I quickly became a fan. Then they did something that, at the time at least, was creative in a marketing sense. They created a website that was a “we’re going to pretend as if all this is real” kind of thing, that somehow made the show that much beter. It was cool. The show was cool. And they were doing some pioneering work in how to use the web to market a show.

Season Two just started, and they have pulled off yet again another innovative idea in marketing – they’ve blurred the lines between product placement and conventional advertising, and in the process have forged something new, different, and in many ways, pretty scary. [Read more…] about EUReKa!…I think they’re on to something.

My two cents.

The Captain is IN.I’ve been in the business of using computers, in one way or another, since 1982. I wrote my first college paper on an Apple III. I owned one of the original IBM PCs (Hercules Graphics Card! 512K RAM! Two full-height 5 1/4″ Floppy Drives! Dot Matrix Printer! DOS 2.0! Ashton-Tate Framework! All for the low, low price of $4,000!!!). I’ve worked as a software engineer, product manager, project manager, marketing manager, and user interface evangelist for software publishing companies. I was around for the birth of Windows 1.0, the life and death of COMDEX, the rise of the common user interface, the Year of the LAN, and a slew of other things, long consigned to the dust bin of computer history. I’ve been a user, author, coder, beta-tester, evangelist, designer, and planner. In short, I’ve held just about every job you can hold in the software industry.

Now I’m writing reviews. [Read more…] about My two cents.

The Value of Old.

The older I get, the more I appreciate old stuff. I suppose that makes a certain amount of synergistic sense. When I was a kid, “new” was the thing. If some marketer prefixed their pitch with the magic word “new” – they had my attention. These days, I equate “new” with “not as good as what it replaced.” That’s not always true, of course – a new computer is better/faster/cheaper than an old one. But when it comes to things that require craftsmanship, pride, skill, taste, and durability, “old” beats “new” almost every time. Case in point, musical instruments. [Read more…] about The Value of Old.

The Problem with Miley.

Miley Cyrus: good girl?Know what a “Tween” is? Unless you’ve been living under a rock (which might not be such a bad idea, actually), you know a tween is the trendy label for those ages 9 to 12 – not quite a child anymore, but not quite a teenager. A “tweenager,” if you will. I’m the proud father of a tween. She’s obsessed with all the typical things that girls her age are – fashion, Miley Cyrus, High School Musical, Jonas Brothers, and fashion. The problem is, I’m not sold on the idea that all those obsessions are the right ones.

Here’s the deal. I had a great childhood. Idyllic, really. I want the same for my daughter. But we live in a radically different world today, and I’m afraid she’s being exposed to a lot of things that are stealing her childhood right out from under our noses. [Read more…] about The Problem with Miley.

Zig Obama.

Barack Does Berlin.I’m a conservative. (Note I didn’t say “I’m a Republican.” In today’s world of RINOs – Republicans In Name Only – running the show, I can’t claim kinship…the word “Republican” has no real meaning any more.)

As a conservative, I’m against practically everything Obama stands for. You know – socialism, higher taxes, less national defense, more appeasement – that sort of thing. Frankly, Obama scared me silly from the begining, as I see him as the perfect candidate for this age of political parties held hostage by radical fringe groups and a mainstream media who has abandoned their traditional job as neutral observers and become a bunch of cheerleaders for a single candidate (Obama, if you’ve not been paying attentition to the blatant media bias). But last night, as I watched The Annointed One address a political rally in Germany (?!), I realized what REALLY scares me about this guy. [Read more…] about Zig Obama.