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The Big Tease: Getting Us Hooked on Super Bowl Commercials Before the Game

I hate television commercials, and I’m willing to bet you do, too. They’re annoying, they’re unrealistic, and perhaps most infuriating of all, they always air much louder than the actual show you were engrossed in before the break.

With my DVR, I can get around this. There’s nothing I love more than being able to fast-forward through the commercials. It makes me feel like I have the upper hand on the advertisers. That I’m beating them at their own game.

And this makes the advertisers very, very sad. Indeed, as traditional television viewership has declined, so has advertising revenue. The television ad market dipped 21.2% between 2008 and 20091, and since then it hasn’t exactly made a comeback.

But there remains one time of year where the advertisers can still beat me at my own game. One very special day where they know that they have nearly all of America’s attention…

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Twitter Tutorial: Using Hashtags

There are a handful of words that never fail to make me hungry, and one of those words is “hashtag.” Whenever I lay eyes on that word, visions of perfectly browned shredded potatoes come dancing through my mind.

Sadly, a hashtag couldn’t be further removed from a hashbrown. And maybe that’s not such a bad thing, because when’s the last time a potato did so much for your marketing strategy?

If you’ve been on Twitter for any length of time, you’ve seen a hashtag in action. A hashtag is any word or phrase preceded by a # symbol. The hashtag is used to denote key topics, similar to the way a tag is used on a blog…

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When Is A Brand Big Enough To Go Small?

AMC has just released a new poster marketing the return of season five of their seminal show Mad Men – and it’s already got the design world lining up to take sides.

If you’ve never before seen it, Mad Men is a dramatic series set in the 1960s at a fictional advertising agency in New York. It deals with shifting social norms, especially as experienced through the show’s main character, Don Draper.

The minimalist poster depicts a black and white silhouette of a man in a suit falling headfirst through a white and grey negative space. At the bottom, red and black text simply reads “March 25.” …

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Podcasts: Your Get-Started Guide

Podcasting. Sounds like something straight out of The Jetsons, right? You’d almost expect it to involve some sort of pod-like vehicle that launches you to any destination of your choice.

Speaking of which — why haven’t they invented that yet? I’m also still waiting for that big machine that bathes, clothes, and grooms you in five seconds flat. I could save so much time in the morning!

But back to podcasting. Chances are, you’ve heard it mentioned before. You may have even listened to one, and now you’re wondering how to go about recording your own. No matter where you stand, here’s an overview to help you get started. …

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How to Grow Your Presence on Twitter

I’ll admit it, I was a late adopter of Twitter. Something about that 140-character limit seemed, well, limiting, and I was sure I didn’t need to add another distraction to my day. I figured it’d be better to leave the tweeting to the birds.

Two years after I finally overcame my reluctance and opened an account, I’m a solid believer in this social media platform. Yep, I’m one of those annoying Twitter evangelists, running around encouraging everyone to join. And even if you’re not yet quite as convinced as I am, you’ve probably figured out by now that Twitter is here to stay, so you’ve likely jumped on the bandwagon, too.

Good choice. Twitter is a great way to promote your business and brand…

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