Bloggers say the darndest thiings ... on Michael Jackson

Did you know ...

"Michael Jackson had a patent."

       - You can read about it on the Advertising That Works blog.

"You know the morphing effect that we take for granted in movies and commercials, can even do at home on our laptops? What was the first time you ever saw that? If you're like me, it was in the Black or White music video. It was so cool, so cutting edge that I remember sitting in my living room watching it, right after an episode of The Simpsons, even now."

      - From The Exact Target blog.

"My question to you - How did you hear about Michael Jackson’s death?" 

      - Was it via Twitter version 1.0 or 2.0? Check out this interesting post called "Michael Jackson and the Twitter factor" on the Wikinomics blog. 

DMers: A Few Questions for 2009 - and a couple of newsworthy tidbits

Not on the blog roll yet, but should they be? Check out these top ten blogs in 2009, according to Direct Marketing Observations' Marc Meyer. (I just added one to my blog roll.)

Is this BizReport DM forecast coming true - or too early to tell?

What key steps should big companies be taking to be more effective with their marketing in a recession? See what The Direct Marketing Voice has to say on the subject.

-- Tell 'em The Copy Grove sent you. --

And in today's news:

Amex is paying cardholders to close their accounts. Only a limited number of cardholders will get the offer - pay off your account and close it, get $300. Not bad! Discover, here they come! Discover has a better rewards program, anyway, in my opinion - but hey, in this economy, wonder how long those rewards are going to last?

And how about Tropicana scraping their new OJ carton design (launched last month) because of public outcry? Who needs focus groups when you can have a true test in the marketplace? What Tropicana is doing right: Listening to its market and reacting. Better to get rid of the unpopular cartons NOW, before the company loses market share. 

The Art Linklover Show - Reruns from the previous week in blogging

Bloggers Say The Darnedest Things ...

"Gone are the days of super-duper high volume direct mail, blanketing anyone who seems close to the target audience. DM will be used judiciously and only where it makes sense." U Suzanne Obermire on hearing the latest news from the U.S. Postal Service about ending their fiscal year delivering 9.5 billion fewer letters and packages than the year before.

"So maybe that career in house flipping didn’t really pan out. Or maybe you tried cashing in on other’s misfortunes with that Find Fortunes in Foreclosures training course. Forget that. The market WILL bounce back. And when it does, people will need help sprucing up before they sell. And that means... Home stager training with The Haverhill Institute of Staging & Design! $24 to $31 an hour? Sign me up!" @ Make The Logo Bigger 

The Art Linklover Show

Bloggers Say The Darnedest Things ...

"I’m surprised the marketing world has not adopted current truth as its mantra. Heck, I’m aghast that no marketing group has yet hijacked the concept outright. As I write this article currenttruth.com is available for the taking." - About the popular phrase "The Current Truth" on Before & After, Creative Thinking In Business.

^

"A Promise is an Infomercial. Dear Students, A good ad tells truth. It is concerned with a fact. (it doesn't have to be an informational fact. observations can be the truth) A bad ad promises." - From a teacher of a graduate program in advertising, not so good with punctuation it seems ... Mark Fenske.

The Art Linklover Show

Bloggers Say The Darnedest Things ...

"... you rank up there with the best that Billy Mays has to offer. The problem is .... you come off looking dated and sad .... You and Aqua Velva. Please. I beg of you, stop now."

- Ranting about Just For Men on Make The Logo Bigger.

"If you have comments enabled, recent posts, a blogroll of links and an RSS feed you might be 58% bloggy by some people’s reckoning."

- Direct Online Marketing blog, regarding a sliding scale of "blogginess." (How bloggy are you, btw?)

"The word exposure reminds me of the word naked so I thought of the term Naked Marketing."

- Uncle Naked Head on how he named his blog, Naked Marketing Blog.

Tune In, Tune On, Tune Out

Bloggers Say The Darnedest Things ...

"At the risk of sounding like a Successories poster, here’s one truth that I picked up over the years: You have to continue functioning even when the bottom falls out. And it gets easier after you’ve done it a few times." From Ray Schultz, posting on The Big Fat Marketing Blog about going to the DMA conference that was held this week in Vegas, despite all the economic turmoil with Bailout 2008. 

"Personally, I find this kinda juvenile--but that's just me..." Suzanne Obermire on the 2008 DMA Vegas conference theme, "R U Connected?"

"What I saw were row after row of companies peddling what my dad would call 'buckets of rubber dog crap.'” From Garth, posting at Garth's World - with his random musings following his return from the 2008 DMA show in Vegas.

Have a good weekend - and keep plugging away, all!

And tune in again for Art Linklover ...