Ok you procrastinators, I know you’re out there. It is now December 22nd. You have exactly 3 days before Christmas Day or if you celebrate with family like I do on Christmas Eve, you are down to only two! Yikes…it is time to brave the masses and SHOP!

Don’t panic, I am here to help. Working at an advertising and public relations agency we have a lot of retail clients that are perfect for getting the inside scoop. I compiled a few helpful tips to make your last minute shopping experience a little less painful:

Stop by Hazard Center  in Mission Valley: all you need, all in one stop. Have a book lover in the family? Check out Barnes and Noble where you can find a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction books. Can’t decide what to get your boss? Pick up a Starbucks gift card for him and an Eggnog latte for yourself. (My personal Favorite).

 Tiffany & Co. San Diego in Fashion Valley is doing something they have never done before. I think it is pretty cool too! They are offering “boxed, bowed and ready to go” gift options to make your last minute holiday shopping a snap. Just think of the look on that special someone’s face when they see a gift under the Christmas tree wrapped in that timeless Tiffany blue box.

Tiffany & Co. not your style? Try heading on down to Seaport Village for a little shopping along the waterfront. Can’t find a sitter for the kids? No Problem, Seaport Village offers lots of stuff for the entire family. Free entertainment, street performers, waterfront dining, and don’t forget to take a spin on the 1895 Loof Carousel. With over 50 shops to choose from, you’re sure to find something for everyone in the family. Even your old Aunt Edna who is hard to please. Have a teenage girl in the family? Check out Urban Girl Accessories to find tons of things to choose from for that perfect gift.  Still not convinced? Seaport Village is OPEN Christmas Day from 10am-6pm and is offering free all day parking! What’s better than that?

So, you are done shopping and now you have a ton of gifts to wrap. What now? Try Holiday gift bags. All you need is a the gift bag, some tissue paper and you are done. No wrapping, no tape, no scissors and no gift tags. Fast, easy and efficient.

There you have it. A few helpful tips to get you through your mad dash of last minute holiday shopping. I hope you find everything you are looking for!

With all this talk about Black Friday and Cyber Monday and all the other colors and days to which people have attached holiday meaning, I think we should test the system and start our own movement to see what happens.  Maybe reading Seth Godin’s latest book “Tribes” has gotten under my skin, or maybe it’s just the incessant media attention paid to certain holiday shopping days and the ensuing financial trends attached to them.  Whichever it is, I know there is a great deal of power in the notion of a tipping point — so I am challenging us to create one.  As a social experiment of sorts.

So, on Tuesday December 9, let’s all go out and buy scotch tape.  As in lots and lots of it. (No, they are not a client).  We’ll call it Purple Tuesday.

Stock up on all the holidays, birthdays and other occasions you plan to celebrate for the next three or four years.  Because herein lies my madness — if we create a run on scotch tape, then some pundit, some bean counter, some analyst sitting in a darkened office somewhere watching numbers blip on a computer screen, will assign some significant meaning to this uptick.  This sudden surge of scotch tape consumerism will require a reason.

And what better reason than perhaps this:  consumers are buying scotch tape because they must wrap all the many thousands of packages they have purchased as holiday gifts for family and friends.  The very idea that all these many items have been purchased and must be wrapped will signify that all is not lost this holiday season — that perhaps people really are buying stuff, and spending their money on gifts, and these gifts must be wrapped, and sealed with scotch tape, and presenting to smiling family and friends in a traditional gift exchange experience.

And voila!  We will have singlehandedly turned around  holiday retail sales when prognosticators have predicted the 2008 season would be one of the bleakest in decades.  It’s our very own stimulus package.

The nation’s retailers will thank us, including some of our agency’s clients such as Tiffany & Co., Seaport Village, Del Mar Plaza, Hazard Center and a whole lot more.

All because we bought a few cases of scotch tape.

So whaddya say?  Purple Tuesday anyone?  It couldn’t be any sillier than a Black Friday that drives people to trample and shoot each other, or Cyber/Black Monday where millions return to work to shop from their computers — instead of (gasp!) work.  Let’s see what happens.

Being the Administrative Assistant here at BG, I go through the mail everyday. I am amazed at the amount of junk mail this office receives. Catalog after catalog, mailer after mailer. It is quite overwhelming and makes me a little sick because all I do with all that stuff is throw it into the recycle bin.  As mentioned before in Jon’s blog, we conducted a one week experiment to see how much junk mail our office received. After just ONE week of everyone saving their direct mail, we had over 14 lbs of JUNK. Here is a little reminder picture of what all that junk looked like.

As part of our effort to become a more eco-friendly company, I did some research to find out how to stop this overload of direct mail. I found some pretty great tips on the Privacy Rights Clearing House website. I wanted to share a few with you. These tips were taken directly from their website:

Pre-Approved Offers of Credit:

1. To have your name removed from this particular mailing list, you must contact the credit reporting agencies directly by mail or phone.  You can find the addresses and numbers for these agencies here.

US Postal Service Change of Address:

1. To notify senders of a change of address, it is better to contact your credit card companies, family, friends, utilities,  and magazines directly to avoid the junk mail following you to your new address.
2. If you fill out a change of address form at the post office they in turn will send out a change of address card to mailers who have your old address. This will include any current junk mail you are receiving.

To remove yourself from as many national mailings as possible:

1. Contact the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) sign up for their Mail Preference Service (MPS). Once you register your name will be put into a “do not mail” file that is updated monthly. You MUST re-register after three years. There is a $1 charge to register by mail. Their address is: Mail Preference Service , Attention Dept: 27478505, Direct Marketing Association, PO Box 282 Carmel, NY 10512.
2. Or Register with the DMA online here: DMA Choice Website

These are just a few tips from their website. It was pretty helpful to me and I hope it will be as helpful to you. (I did find a few errors on their page regarding the DMA and I have made the changes here on this blog.)  Let’s all send a message to companies who use direct mail marketing by taking our names off the list. If enough of us do it who knows we might start  something. Maybe they will try using Social Media instead.

Amazon recently teamed up with Fisher-Price to change the packaging on 19 of their best-selling products.  Instead of the typical packaging designed to provide shelf-appeal, they are offering the same products in an easy-to-open, recyclable container that uses no excess packing materials.

Here’s a comparison of the Imaginext Adventures Pirate Ship packaging:

As an aspiring do-gooder, I’m struck by how much sense this makes.  So let me get this straight.  It’s the same exact product.  I don’t have to break out grandpa’s pocketknife to get it open.  And I’m doing less harm to the environment.

Is there anyone out there who would pick package #2?

In the marketing industry it’s hard to sacrifice aesthetics when we’re trying to do good work.  Sometimes, though, we may want to think about doing good instead - especially if doing good is what our target market values.  They will understand the environmental benefits of purchasing the brown box over the mountain of plastic.  And they will understand we had them in mind when they experience the ease of use.

The ad below ran in USA Today Main News on November 5.

On the surface, the ad seems like a smart concept.  But the ad fails to account for the psychology of the American public the day after the historic day.  As such, it falls under the category of “Clever” but does not fall under the category of good.  

Where does the ad fail?

Over 64 million people voted for Barack Obama.  Ostensibly, most of those people were attracted to Obama because of his 21-month-long message that  “We are not a collection of Red States and Blue States — We are the United States of America”.  I was one of them who drank the purple kool aid.  I woke up on November 5 excited about the mere possibility that a new less-partisan political age was upon us.  66% of people under 30 years old voted for Obama.  I would imagine that The Sopranos’ sweet spot is in that demographic.  The ad turned me off on a day I was ready to embrace a new political landscape that at the very least is less devisive than it has been.

Does the ad resonate with the almost 57 million McCain (who also touched on a message of coming together) voters that woke up November 5 disappointed?  Maybe.

And maybe McCain voters are more likely to enjoy The Sopranos than Obama voters.

I think that even most McCain voters felt proud of the country for rallying together and electing the first black president–regardless of political affiliation.  The news of the day certainly was not about partisan divide.

The ad would have been more appropriate for 2004 when there was not such a message of unity from both campaigns.

Ever felt so stressed-out or angry that you could just break something?

Now there’s a place you can do just that.

The Smash Shack—located at 1353 6th Ave. in downtown San Diego—is a unique business that allows you to throw, break and destroy your favorite fragile items in one of their two rooms devoted to “constructive destruction.”

Each participant chooses their smashable items from a menu, is outfitted with safety gear and given a private room where the demolition takes place. Wanna synchronize your smashing to your favorite tunes? No problem. Each “break room” has an mp3 player hook-up so you can bring your favorite songs along with you.

Want to throw your objects at something? The Shack will frame your favorite poster or picture as your “target.” They also have markers available for you to write on your breakable items pre-throw. And they even offer group discounts—I’m thinking Bailey Gardiner PR & Advertising retreat 2009.

And yes, in anticipation of Election Day angst, the Smash Shack will be open late on November 3rd. Until all the votes are counted (or later if need be).

Seaport Village’s Ben & Jerry’s locations are giving away free ice cream cones on election day from 5-9 p.m. as an “Election Confection” celebration.

In-the-know coworker, Callan let me know that Baskin Robbins was also doing some great work with the elections, so I checked it out. Not only are they doing great work with the elections, but with social media and branding overall. It’s a natural fit; people like to talk about stuff they love, and who doesn’t love ice cream!?

Check out The National Flavor Election Flavor Debate ’08. The Republican “Straight Talk Crunch” flavor vs. the Democratic “Whirl of Change” flavor. If you look to the cold and creamy to make your election decision, it looks like Obama will be running the country thanks to peanut-nougats, chocolate-covered peanut brittle and a caramel ribbon.

More importantly, Baskin Robbins and their Flavor Debate made all the right moves.

• Their Facebook page has 54,996 fans and they’re interacting with the brand through hundreds of wall posts and pictures.
• I took 2 minutes to type “Baskin Robbins” into monitter and people are talking! They weren’t talking casual mentions of BR either. They were talking about the Flavor Debate ’08 – exactly what BR’s smart PR folks wanted them to talk about!
• They’re represented on Flickr
• They’re talked about on Youtube
• They run a twitter account
• They’re saved on delicious
• And – they have a strong Wikipedia page

Ben & Jerry’s isn’t doing so bad themselves. With similar social interaction as Baskin Robbin’s and a heated debate on ice cream’s involvement in politics (2 subjects I never thought I’d combine in one sentence) their Facebook page has 287,819 fans!

So what are you doing to become one of these fine examples of successful social media campaigns?

I’m reading an interesting new book by Martin Lindstrom called “buyology” I learned about in a Newsweek article.  It’s pretty quick read and highly worth the time investment.  His premise is one that I have believed for most of my marketing, advertising and branding career — that people lie about what they say they want.  Their brains behave differently than what their mouths tell you.  It’s sociology, psychology and common sense all rolled into the emotional componentry of the branding process.  Lindstrom calls it neuromarketing.

Lindstrom did a study where he tracked people’s brain scans as they answered questions about their purchase behaviors and response to brands.  What he found was quite interesting — that our brain circuitry attracts us to certain brands because of emotional cues inherent in that brand.  These cues may have nothing to do with our need for the product, but simply our wiring tells us we relate to that brand’s attributes.

Like my unnaturally strong attraction to Apple.  But that’s another blog post.

One of the most interesting (and scary) examples in buyology focuses on smokers, and why the Surgeon General’s warnings mean absolutely nothing to their brains.  In fact, their wiring is somehow attracted to those warnings, and what was meant to deter them from smoking actually attracts them to it.

Emotional bonding in the branding process is not new science.  But what Lindstrom brings to the equation is a cool scientific approach that actually proves up what we branding strategists are always telling our clients:  create brand attributes that connect with your customers on a human scale.

When we take a client through the branding process, one of the exercises we employ is a “personality assessment” of the brand. We ask the participants to think of their product as a person, and then name that person’s traits:

• Is this person warm, friendly, strong, believable, honest?
• Is he a leader?
• Does he make you feel hip, trendy, and carefree, or instead is it safe, secure, nurtured and pampered?

Whatever the set of attributes you attach to your product or service, they are the truest representation of how people will emotionally bond (or not) through your marketing.

From there, we can devise a strategic marketing plan that taps into your customer’s emotional bond, helping them to become more likely to purchase.  They are drawn to your brand because there is something vaguely familiar tugging at them to do so.

Fascinating. And  I always thought I would make a crappy scientist. Who knew?

Since the beginning of this blog, we have written 26 posts that reference and/or generally extol the virtues of social media.  As a company claiming social media as a core competency, and with many-a-successful case studies, it’s no surprise that we talk about it positively.

The primary reason to incorporate social media in your marketing is because people are talking about you.  Whether you choose to participate is your choice, but you can be certain that the chatter will continue.

And, if social media is all about communicating and listening, then it makes sense to communicate and listen when there is backlash to something.  Also, it’s always smart to listen to dissenting views of your product, company or service.  See Wall Street for examples.  So…..

The posts below are people talking.  Whether you agree or disagree is your choice.  What matters is that people are talking and other people are apparently listening as evidenced by the page view counters of almost 1 million combined.  Time will determine what the validity of sweetafton23 (top) and Seth McFarlane’s (bottom) views are.

And by the way, right now I love using social media to talk about other people using social media to bash social media.

It’s been quite a while since I’ve stepped into a cell phone store, but if I recall correctly, the last time I upgraded my phone I received a rebate check made payable to Kelsey Bollinger.  This time, however, Verizon sent me a Visa debit card.  This card can work the same way as the personal check and I can deposit it into my checking or savings account.

But, I won’t.  I’m going to use it just as I would cash.  Besides, I said goodbye to that money a month ago when I paid for the phone, so my bank account won’t know the difference. This makes me wonder if Verizon is trying to help stimulate the economy.

It isn’t cheaper to print and mail cards instead of a perforated piece of paper.  I know because I do a lot of printing.  And I really can’t imagine that folks march into the Verizon store with their rebate for further upgrades and accessories.

Could Verizon be looking out for our economic health?  Maybe.  Hopefully.

IBM took a different approach at trying to stave off the economic bear.  They made an early announcement of their 3rd quarter earnings hoping to encourage investors.

What have other large and influential companies done to help?