Beyond Cute Kittens: Pinterest's Best Uses

Pinterest has been around a couple of years now, but it's just been in the last few months that Pinterest has really started to explode on the social media market. At the same time, I think it's getting a bit of a bad reputation—not too dissimilar from the original criticisms of Twitter. The same nay-sayers who complained that no one wants to read a tweet about what they ate for lunch are missing the mark now on Pinterest when they complain that no one wants to see them pin photos of cute kittens.

I probably should have written this post last summer, a few months after I started using Pinterest. Like many social media options, it took a little while to get used to it and figure out how and whether or not it was worth investing my precious time in. (And precious my time is! As you can see from my sad, pathetic lack of posting recently...) I must say that in the end Pinterest won me over big time and a friend's recent post got me inspired to write about it.

Pinterest's first major use for me was as a collaborative design board for a few other art directors at the agency and myself as we brainstormed a facelift for the interior of our offices. Our lobby was screaming for a makeover. However, getting even a few people on the same page was difficult—add in that we were sharing visual ideas with each other whenever we had a spare moment between other projects and you got disorganized mess of emails with jpg attachments no one could ever locate later when needed. Pinterest offered us the perfect platform to start collecting all our finds and visual brainstorms. It also offered us a centralized place to send our interior designer to share our vision for the space.

Since that first use for Pinterest, my faith in it as a platform grew and it is now my primary bookmarking platform. For someone who mostly wants to bookmark visual things or ideas, it's perfect. And no, I don't find it at all important to bookmark a cute kitten with a quote under it. It's just clutter. Pinterest is full of those types of pins, but it's also full of actually useful pins.  I think Pinterest can be quite a game changer if the wide variety of uses it offers really start to catch on. Here are the best uses I've found for Pinterest:

Online Recipe File All your recipes in one place, accessible with one click and organized by photo and easy to access from my phone = a working woman's recipe heaven.

Visual Inspiration Database I've used it countless times when I'm stuck on a design problem. I keep boards for typography design, infographic design and illustrators that I like so they're easy to access if I want to hire them for a future project.

Brainstorming Tool Multiple people can pin to a board if you invite them. They can comment, like and tag others. It allows for tons of collaboration around visual ideas in a simple way that all stays in one place. We've used it in particular for brainstorming ideas for events.

Shopping Tool Pinterest's built in price snipe makes for easy price comparisons and the click through allows for quick and easy purchasing. If you shop online and especially if you’re shopping for something based mostly on look and price (like a couch), it’s fantastic. It's not too far off from Amazon's universal wish list idea.

Reference Tool One of the most popular ways to use Pinterest is as reference, mostly for household tips, tricks and organization (most Pinterest users are female). There's a fair amount of DIY and craft ideas, it just depends on what your interests are.

As you can see, Pinterest can offer uses far beyond cute or funny photos. Its organization and sharing structure offer many different ways to share and brainstorm visually. I never would have guessed that I was in need of a service like Pinterest, but now that its here, I think I'd have trouble going without it. And that is the marking of a future internet success.

Walgreens' Charity Check-In Special

Foursquare check-in specials are old news. Don't get me wrong, I love extra savings etc. that I often get from Foursquare specials, but I rarely see anything new or creative with their usage. Until today.

I had to stop at Walgreens over lunch to pick up a prescription and checked-in. I'm pretty terrible at remembering to check-in at places I run errands at, but today I remembered and was pleasantly surprised by the Foursquare special Walgreens was running.

My check-in just got someone needy a free flu shot voucher. Nice. Granted, there's no way to make sure that Walgreens follows through, but it still made me feel good about it. In a way it was nicer than getting something free, especially if it's something random I didn't really want in the first place.

Kudos Walgreens and a great new usage of the Foursquare Check-In Special!

Obama Continues Great Online Campaign Strategies

It's no secret that in the 2008 presidential election broke some records. One of them was the amount of grass roots fund raising and social media campaigning that Obama's campaign pioneered. Its success was, no doubt, a huge factor in his successful run for president.

Since 2008, politicians from the local to the national level have embraced social media and online marketing with the same fervor. You would now be a fool to run for even local office without an active and relevant Twitter account and Facebook page. Which brings us the 2012 presidential election and an interesting question:

How is Obama going to top that?

More specifically, now that every Republican nominee will use similar tactics, how is Obama's campaign going to stand out as different? His unique, cutting edge way of campaigning was such a large part of how he got into office and raised millions of dollars in $5 increments, one wonders how he'll top that. How he'll continue to get that kind of attention and support now that the idealist 'Hope' fervor and marketing differentiation that helped carry his first campaign is gone.

I was surprised and interested to see one of his new tactics emerge already:

Donate for a chance to dine with the president.

How cool is that? For any amount of donation, you can put your name in the hat to dine with the President. Its a standard sweepstakes, but twisted such that it fits campaign goals.

I find this to be a great tactic for a few reasons. First, if you're a liberal and an Obama fan it's your chance to schmooze with the President, get your ideas heard first hand like the top end campaign donors do—but at a much more affordable price. Even if you're an independent, someone not sure if they're going to vote for Obama let alone donate, it still seems to be a tempting offer. For $5 I can see a few otherwise non-donors dropping a few bucks for the chance to be heard first hand by the President. And finally, it's just pretty cool to meet the President, even if you don't agree with his politics. Tack the shear fact that, love him or hate him, Obama will go down in history books for being the first black President of the U.S. and it's quite an offer.

What do you think? Is a tactic like this going to up the amount of donations to the campaign? Or is it just a cheesy ploy?

Time Magazine Reaches Out ... To Gamers?

Time Magazine is doing an interesting cross promotion with video game Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 by lending it's iconic cover template for a faux cover claiming 'World Stands On The Brink' while Wall Street smolders in the background. Time apparently even helped art direct the cover.

Time says that it's involved in the cross promotion in order to reach a new demographic of customers, while critics have a hard time seeing it really reach gamers and in the meantime it dilutes the brand image. I think Time isn't far off in how their trying to reach a new demographic—the usage of the magazine is appropriate and similar to how it's used in say, product placement in a movie for example. I don't think this treatment necessarily dilutes the brand image any more than that would. If anything, it's reminding them of Time's iconic place in the realm of news magazines.

But there is a catch—if Time is looking for growth in magazine subscriptions and not just awareness we have a problem. Why? Because I don't think too many gamers are the types to buy paper news magazines. They're much more likely to get that news online and given the constant dialogue about the best way for newspapers and magazines will be able to monetize their online operations as print declines. But that's another story...

American Express's Social To Mainstream Media?

American Express is running an interesting commercial highlighting customer's tweets about how they spent their customer rewards. It's a fun, feel good campaign though I would have loved to see it even more a couple of years ago. American Express is not the first to do a campaign like this, but they are still relatively few and far between. I also thought this one was pretty well executed. Check it out:

Check In To Space

I had heard, in the infancy of Foursquare, that you could check in to outer space. I looked for it on my Foursquare app, thinking it might be one of those global check ins—because, you know, Earth is in space, right?—but I couldn't find it. Apparently I needed to be in a space ship—or a 7-Eleven.

Yep, you heard me. 7-Eleven is offering you the opportunity to check in to space at a 7-Eleven store. And they're giving you the opportunity to win a space experience! Okay, well a Zero-gravity flight at any rate. You're more apt to win free tickets to the movie Super 8, for which they are offering this cross promotion.

Yes, it's a bit hokey, but fun nonetheless. I'd stop by a 7-Eleven just to have that on my Foursquare history, would you?

Everything's Better With Bacon

If you work in advertising or design you're bound to be familiar with 'greek' copy. It's that nonsensical string of words designers use as placeholder text to show where copy would go before the it's actually written. It's meant to be there as filler so one does not get caught up in the specifics of what's being said and can concentrate on looking at the overall design and concept. The typical stuff goes something like this:

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipscing elit, sed diam nonnumy eiusmod tempor incidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquam erat volupat. Ut enim ad minimum veniam, quis nostrud exercitation ullamcorper suscipit lab oris nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo consequat.

Surprisingly, that copy is actually broken latin that translate roughly into Cicero's On the Boundaries of Goods and Evils. Not that anyone actually reads it. There are dozens on Lorem Ipsum generator sites on the web that will give you a whatever amount of the placeholder text for you to copy and paste into your layouts.

Enter the Bacon Ipsum Generator. Essentially it does the same thing as a traditional Lorem Ipsum generators, but it uses only cuts of meat for the words. So instead of the copy show above, you might get something more like this:

Boudin sirloin pastrami, tenderloin meatloaf bresaola brisket pig meatball tongue. Biltong bresaola ham hock, tongue tri-tip turkey brisket meatball meatloaf jerky corned beef drumstick. Flank pork tri-tip, jowl tongue shankle short loin hamburger headcheese strip steak venison boudin ribeye andouille t-bone.

How fun is that? We've all seen Lorem ipsum enough times to recite the first few lines from memory (I'm not joking) so a little shake up of the old routine is more than welcome—especially when it includes bacon. Yum!

Cool QR Code Ads

The advertising world is becoming overrun with QR codes and they are usually used pretty poorly. Love them or hate them, QR codes do sometimes serve a valuable purpose—if your audience is technologically savvy smart phone users and if you want to drive them to a website that might be cumbersome to type into those smart phones. Most QR code uses don't fit those criteria, most of the time it seems like ads with QR codes fall into the "so we can say we did it" reasoning.

But if you're going to go that route, at least make the ad about the QR code. And make it cool. Like these fun QR code ads I ran across on Ads of the World a couple days ago. Otherwise you easily fall into the realm of marketers that have suddenly discovered they can scan ugly bar codes with their phones. How novel.

Creative PSA Turned Viral Ad

The Alamo Theater in Austin created quite and internet stir this week as one of it's in-house PSA announcements went viral on the web. The local movie theater chain apparently has a history of amusing PSA announcements, reminding patrons to be respectful of others in the theater by not using their phones or talking loudly. One set even featured the former governor of Texas!

Their latest home grown effort, however, has captured the web since it features a rather amusing rant from a patron kicked out of their theater for texting during a movie.

At one point in the rant, the offender notes that she was not aware that she could not text in the theater and that she has 'texted in ALL the other movie theaters in Austin and no one ever gave a @#&!' which offers up the question—why aren't more theaters kicking people out for this? Clearly, some people don't realize texting during a movie is just as taboo as chatting on your cellphone and based on the popularity of this PSA, more patrons prefer their movies sans texters. Honestly, this PSA makes me want to go to an Alamo movie theater and I'd gladly patronize any other theater that takes an equally tough stance on texters and talkers. If you can't be separated from your phone for a couple hours (besides potentially seeking help for that), just wait for the DVD please.

Is Audi Copying Chrysler?

It seems a tad hard to believe, but a new video (no advertisement, according to Audi spokespeople) airing in Europe has a pretty distinct inspirational vibe from the recent 'Imported From Detroit' Chrysler Super Bowl commercial.



I came across this European ad because Eminem is actually suing Audi for illegal use of his copyrighted music (if you notice, a minimally revised version of 8 Mile guitar tracks play in the background of the Audi commercial), not because it's being accused as a rip off (though it kind of is). Honestly, if they'd not used Eminem's guitar track it would feel less like a rip off and they wouldn't be in legal hot water right now.

On that note, I have to ask both Audi and their agency, 'What were you thinking?' Audi's response has been that this is not an advertisement and it's not running in the US (and that this doesn't involve Audi of America). Other than the target audience perhaps not realizing it's the rip off that it is, how is that helping your case? You used a well known music track illegally, and semi-copied rival car company's Super Bowl commercial. Shame on Audi and shame on their agency (I'm not actually sure who produced this).

On the flip side, major kudos to Chrysler for producing such a kick ass spot that a luxury German brand is imitating it.

Here's the Chrysler ad if you want to compare: