The Toad Stool

The Toad Stool

The Best Marketing Video Ever Made
The "Microsoft Designs the iPod" video is still the best marketing video ever made.Why?Because it reflects, in a clear and visceral way, the impetus behind what I'd estimate to be around 90% of the unnecessary input into any marketing project.It's the inability to push back on that input, what my...
14 hours ago · Share it
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The Toad Stool The Most Important Men in Marketing? (via Flagged For Follow Up)

Do you know these men? I am a huge believer in Alan Wolk's theory of NASCAR blindness. Both because I've seen it in practice, and I've recognized it in myself from time-to-time. With that ...I don' ... Read More on Alan Wolk's The Toad Stool on Posterous http://post.ly/DFAD
Yesterday at 6:26am via Posterous · Posted to Alan Wolk's The
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The Toad Stool

I Guess This Means We're For Real
November 18 at 3:32pm · Share it
Michael Kantrow
Michael Kantrow
well u were real before that actually but a nice compliment
November 18 at 4:05pm
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The Toad Stool Palin's Book Tour Builds on Effective Web Strategy

By PETER WALLSTEN Sarah Palin will launch her national book tour next week, one part of a carefully crafted strategy that has allowed the former vice-presidential candidate to leapfrog tr ... Read More on Alan Wolk's The Toad Stool on Posterous http://post.ly/CcO9
November 14 at 1:19pm via Posterous · Posted to Alan Wolk's The
The Toad Stool
The Toad Stool
Whatever you think of her, it's a clever marketing strategy: using search ads and Facebook as the key elements of a campaign to reach her core target of passionate, non-mainstream fans.

Search ads let her target people looking for stories about her, many of whom are likely supporters, and communicating via Facebook means she's only talking to fans... See More who are likely to give her strong support. She's completely bypassed the mainstream media, including Fox.

You may not like the message, but you have to give her props for her delivery methods, which are something that inanimate brands with passionate, non-mainstream fan bases could steal a page from.
November 14 at 4:38pm
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The Toad Stool Social Media Saves The Innocent: Facebook status update provides alibi

A simple Facebook status update turned into much more for Rodney Bradford: an alibi after he was accused of a crime. STORY HIGHLIGHTS11:49 a.m. October 17, 19-year-old Rodney Bradford updates Facebook ... Read More on Alan Wolk's The Toad Stool on Posterous http://post.ly/CUg0
November 12 at 8:14pm via Posterous · Posted to Alan Wolk's The
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The Toad Stool

Announcing the Hive Awards
The Hive Awards are now live!The Hive Awards started as a pipe dream, about a year ago, when I was looking at web award shows and realized that none of them rewarded things like user experience, content strategy or even coding. At least not on any significant level. What’s more, the awards that w...
November 12 at 7:33am · Share it
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The Toad Stool The Shape Of Things To Come?

Wrigley Drops Tribal DDB, Digitas and Agency.com for Digital Big Spaceship, Firstborn and EVB Will Compete for Future Projects Posted by Kunur Patel on 11.10.0 ... Read More on Alan Wolk's The Toad Stool on Posterous http://post.ly/CKkM
November 10 at 12:36pm via Posterous · Posted to Alan Wolk's The
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The Toad Stool Great article from Al Ries on the danger of not having a solid marketing position and how all the Magic Advertising Words and social media in the world can't fix that. Great catchphrase: TGIF - Twitter, Google, Internet, Facebook

The TGIF 'Revolution' Is Nothing Without a Marketing Strategy - Advertising Age - Al Ries
adage.com
Will the skillful use of TGIF -- Twitter, Google, the internet and Facebook -- make you a good marketing manager? I think not.
November 9 at 10:11am
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The Toad Stool
@Todd Walker - from what I've read of his, the "you need to actually stand for something" is his shibboleth and the "FB is not a substitute for an actual strategy" is just this year's model of "spending $2 million on a TV spot is not a substitute for an actual strategy." That said, his point is very valid
November 9 at 10:49am
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The Toad Stool

Life In The Bubble
Over the past year, I'd say well over 150 of my friends and relatives joined Facebook, none of whom work in any sort of media or technology related function.Maybe 5% of them post regular status updatesMaybe 5% of them post pictures beyond the half dozen or so they put up when they joinedMaybe 2 ...
November 8 at 9:33pm · Share it
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The Toad Stool

Enough With The Guilt, Facebook
"Your mother is just sitting there. Alone. In the dark. But that's okay, you're busy. You go right ahead and play Bejeweled Blitz. I'm sure she won't mind."Facebook has introduced a lot of boneheaded features over the years, but one that seems particularly insidious is the new configuration of th...
November 5 at 7:32pm · Share it
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The Toad Stool why corporate america needs a creative mckinseylike consulting company :: Influxinsights

via influxinsights.com Great quote in this article from Ed Cotton of Influx Marketing: Back in the Mad Men era they had the seat at the table when their ads could make or break a company, now it' ... Read More on Alan Wolk's The Toad Stool on Posterous http://post.ly/BmaD
November 5 at 6:15pm via Posterous · Posted to Alan Wolk's The
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The Toad Stool

Towards A Two-Tier System of Media Consumption
One of the trends I’ve been keeping my eye on is the speed at which we seem to be headed towards a two-tier system of media consumption, with commercial free content available for those willing (and able) to pay for it, and ad-supported content for those who are not.It’s a trend that’s mirrored i...
November 3 at 7:32am · Share it
The Toad Stool

The Toad Stool I'm Bored With The Wii, And So Are A Lot Of My Friends (NTDOY)

NTDOY Oct 30 2009, 05:20 PM EDT 31.41 Change % Change +0.16 +0.51% At Arc90, one of our meeting rooms is proudly called the ... Read More on Alan Wolk's The Toad Stool on Posterous http://post.ly/B7Jz
October 31 at 11:59am via Posterous · Posted to Alan Wolk's The
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The Toad Stool

The Stubborn Mule-Like Tendencies of Reactionary Thinking
Three random events transpired recently. Each fairly innocuous, in and of itself, but together they served to remind me how much the world hasn’t changed once you leave our particular neck of the woods. (Or the internet, as the case may be.)The first epiphany happened during a session with a clie...
October 28 at 8:32pm · Share it
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The Toad Stool Very funny-- and very true.

Should you buy that gadget? Flowchart of the day! - prePoSTeRoUS stream of Len and the world around.
lenkendall.posterous.com
October 22 at 1:20pm
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The Toad Stool

Real Time Goes Prime Time
So it seems like both Bing and Google are in the process of cutting deals with Facebook and Twitter to use their databases for real time search.The result would seem to be a boon for Twitter and a potential land mine for Facebook.Most people tweet with the understanding that their tweets are publ...
October 21 at 10:33pm · Share it
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The Toad Stool

More Magic Advertising Words
The Wall Street Journal' Kara Swisher reported yesterday that Yahoo! was moving its ad account from Ogilvy to Goodby. The news was greeted in ad circles with the usual schadenfreude and proclamations that golden child Goodby would “finally give them a good campaign.”If only it were that easy.Once...
October 20 at 2:32pm · Share it
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The Toad Stool Check Out Dyson's Twitterfall

Very well designed Twitter feed interface from my friends at Poke to capture all the buzz around Dyson's revolutionary new bladeless fan. ... Read More on Alan Wolk's The Toad Stool on Posterous http://post.ly/8rK9
October 16 at 11:10am via Posterous · Posted to Alan Wolk's The
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The Toad Stool

The Power of No-Roll
I’m convinced that when historians look back on the early days of the 21st century, they’ll concur that one of the major nails in the coffin of the broadcast television model was the decision to allow iTunes to broadcast entire shows without even the hint of a commercial break.Because it’s the ra...
October 15 at 10:33am · Share it
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The Toad Stool

More Me
Time for another BeanCast podcast. This one featuring the lovely Åsk Wappling of Adland. Ken Wheaton of Ad Age. Bob Knorpp (our host) and John Wall of Marketing Over Coffee.Topics included the FTCs new guidelines for bloggers, the power of online reviews, is YouTube making Google more creative, a...
October 13 at 10:33am · Share it
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The Toad Stool Good Reads: Gary Vaynerchuk

via amazon.com ... Read More on Alan Wolk's The Toad Stool on Posterous http://post.ly/8OFl
October 13 at 8:15am via Posterous · Posted to Alan Wolk's The
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The Toad Stool

First Ad Age Column
Ad Age editor Jonah Bloom and I appeared on the same BeanCast podcast a few months back, and the result was an offer to start writing for Ad Age.My first column is this week and is online now:Niche Brands Should Embrace Big Market for Offbeat Content One of the wisest bits of advice I've gotten i...
October 11 at 10:32pm · Share it
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The Toad Stool My first column in Ad Age debuts today.

Marketing: Niche Brands Should Embrace Offbeat Content - Advertising Age - Digital
adage.com
There's a world of niche brands whose consumers would welcome the sort of outside-the-mainstream content they're not getting from their social graphs.
October 11 at 7:33pm
Rebecca Brabson
Rebecca Brabson
fantastic Alan!..
October 11 at 7:53pm
Eitan
Eitan
well done, mate.
October 11 at 11:53pm
Ariel
Ariel
Congrats on the column!
October 12 at 7:39am
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The Toad Stool Funny but sadly true piece from Mashable on how the Obama/Nobel Peace Prize win is overwhelming Twitter. http://mashable.com/2009/10/09/barack-obama-nobel-peace-prize/

Barack Obama Wins Nobel Peace Prize, Twitter Goes Crazy
mashable.com
If you're wondering why half of the Twitter trends are currently related to US president Barack Obama, news broke recently that he has been awarded a Nobel
October 9 at 8:10am
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The Toad Stool Advertising Agencies Should Celebrate Failure - Small Agency Diary - Advertising Age

The Art of the Spectacular Fail Your Agency Should Be Kissing More Frogs Posted by Darryl Ohrt on 10.07.09 @ 10:46 AM Darryl Ohrt ... Read More on Alan Wolk's The Toad Stool on Posterous http://post.ly/7bqX
October 7 at 8:32am via Posterous · Posted to Alan Wolk's The
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The Toad Stool Digital Domain - Will Piracy Become a Problem for E-Books?

YOU can buy “The Lost Symbol,” by Dan Brown, as an e-book for $9.99 at Amazon.com. Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This Image The Heads of State Related ... Read More on Alan Wolk's The Toad Stool on Posterous http://post.ly/7I4F
October 4 at 1:39pm via Posterous · Posted to Alan Wolk's The
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The Toad Stool CrapHammer: Slicing Radian 6 for Key Properties

« Death of the URL Bar | Main October 03, 2009 Slicing Radian 6 for Key Properties I'm often asked for a list of key properties or spaces where conversations are ... Read More on Alan Wolk's The Toad Stool on Posterous http://post.ly/7CIh
October 3 at 2:12pm via Posterous · Posted to Alan Wolk's The
Sean Howard
Sean Howard
Thanks for the shout out Alan! Also was good as it got me to finally explore Posterous. ;)
October 3 at 2:32pm
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The Toad Stool

Fear and Loathing in Adland
I don’t know Curt Detweiler. Never even heard of him until this morning when, catching up on my ad trades, I clicked on this article announcing that he’d been named to a senior creative role at McCann in San Francisco.There were over 50 comments attached to the article. But what was truly odd was...
October 2 at 12:32pm · Share it
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The Toad Stool
All possible reasons for sure, but at some level you're just making excuses for a culture in the ad industry that, to your point B, makes people feel uncomfortable to publicly say something as banal as "good luck."

I suspect it's a generational thing: at a time when it's not uncommon to use Facebook Connect to log in to a blog and leave a comment, the anonymous comment thing seems very out of date.
October 2 at 4:18pm
Anca Radu
Anca Radu
I... See More’m with Alan on this. What I’ve learned so far is that ALL THE THINGS THAT HAPPEN UNNATURALLY are the effect of frustration. So to me it seems being afraid to use your real name is the effect of being aware you’re unable to support your opinion. And I analyse this as an unnatural attitude for the simple reason that in real life neither do we use masks, nor do we use false names when stating our opinions, UNLESS WE REALLY HAVE A PROBLEM. Why should the virtual space be different? Because we can’t control the audience and millions of people have the opportunity to reply instantly? So what if they disagree with us? So what if we lose the argument? Is anonymity a way of fending off failure? Failure is natural, is part of the human nature. The inability to cope with failure is not natural at all.
October 2 at 5:12pm
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The Toad Stool http://www.slideshare.net/AlanWolk/your-brand-is-not-my-friend-los-angelessept-2009

Your Brand Is Not My Friend: Los Angeles/Sept 2009
www.slideshare.net
Sept. 2009 version of "Your Brand Is Not My Friend" presented at the KickApps Seminar in Los Angeles.
October 1 at 8:13am
Dan Goldgeier
Dan Goldgeier
Wow. That's become a helluva presentation. Hope I get to see you give it in person someday.
October 2 at 6:33pm
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The Toad Stool http://www.huffingtonpost.com/eric-shutt/ad-experts-offer-social-m_b_299804.html

Eric Shutt: Ad Experts Offer Social Media Tips at NYC's Advertising Week
www.huffingtonpost.com
Presenters at IAB's MIXX Expo, a key event at NYC's Advertising Week, confirmed that advertising's future is now squarely focused on social media.
September 30 at 1:46pm
The Toad Stool
The Toad Stool
Review of IAB MIXX from HuffPo, featuring my presentation
September 30 at 1:47pm
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The Toad Stool

The Power of Buzzwords
Those of you who’ve been reading me for a while know that few things make me cringe like buzzwords, particularly when they’re used in place of simpler language that would make the writer’s point both clearer and easier to comprehend.
Buzzwords are the refuge of those who doubt their ability to la...
September 29 at 4:32pm · Share it