WhipperSnaPR

Cheer’s new laundry detergent, True Fit, has a pretty cute website and an interesting promotion campaign. I heard of it through a Daily Candy dedicated email. The product itself is intriguing; I’d try it if I wasn’t too much of a glamour queen to do my own laundry. This is a perfect spot to plug my laundry service; these guys have greatly improved the quality of my domestic life. I now enjoy complete freedom from laundry!

Here’s some things to do if you’re feeling bored (These are also all parts of campaigns I’m working on… how convenient). Let me know if you find something you particularly like or dislike!

Free game for your cell phone

Featuring the characters from the movie, The Ant Bully, the game is a classic whack-a-mole game, but instead of moles, you’ve got to smack down the slugs, bugs, and other enemies, and call off the exterminator. Whack them all, and progress through all 10 levels of increasing difficulty.

Play detective and “crack the case”

A murder mystery game allows you to play the part of lead detective. Collect evidence, interview key witnesses, and perform autopsies. This one is my personal favorite!

A battle of the bands taken in the most literal sense:

The Warped Masacre Game, part of Fuse TV’s promotion for the Warped Tour, is a parody of Mortal Combat and pits the lead singers from bands on the tour against each other in over-the-top action

So the other night, Ari, James and I went to see Who Killed the Electric Car. To be honest, I didn’t even know the movie existed befor James suggested we go see it and I wasn’t in the best of moods, so I didn’t have high hopes for this trip to the movies (my first in seven months, by the way).

Well, it turns out this was one of the rare occassions when I was wrong, very wrong. I loved the movie! For those of you who haven’t heard of it, it is a documentary about the evolution of the electric car and the business and politics that first spawned the technology and then effectively “murdered” it. Now, I like to think of myself as a left-wing green-friendly citizen of the planet… but in all honesty, I only do the bare minimum as far as saving the planet goes. But, my parents taught me to appreciate natural resources and level-headed politics, so the movie’s message spoke to me.I almost cried when I saw this image:

The first thought that came to mind as I was watching was: If the electric car was killed partially because a car company didn’t want to invest in and market a product that would a) admit their main product was faulty and b) undercut their short-term profits, wouldn’t the solution be to start a new company that produces only electric vehicles? I realize this would require taking bold leaps of faith and raising huge amounts of capital, but if the movie is correct and there really is a market demand for the product, why not by-pass the corporate roadblocks and build the car people are asking for?

On another, slightly related note, I thought this would be a great opportunity to write about one of my favorite companies. I am a loyal member of ZipCar, a car sharing community in Boston (and NY and DC and Toronto and San Francisco and most recently, Chicago).

I like to think I am their biggest evangelist customer. I love to talk about how much I love ZipCar… I LOVE these guys. They have improved my quality of live in Boston by 100%. They even have some EVs in their fleet!
Most days, I don’t need a car to go about my life, but there have been many occassions, for work or play, when I need more than what the bus or T can offer. I am about to renew my membership and enter my third year as a loyal ZipCar customer and so far, the membership has paid for itself in convenience alone. Plus it is just a really cool company… I’d love to do their PR. I wonder if they’ve ever considered an online or mobile game to build brand awareness…

This weekend, Ari and I went to one of my favorite bars in Cambridge, Enormous Room. A friend introduced me to “enormous” over a year ago and I’ve been a loyal patron ever since. Although, I as I noticed during my last visit, the qualities that originally drew me to the bar so frequently have all begun to disappear or transform into traits that I don’t find as appealing. So, it got me thinking…

Enormous Room has done very little advertising (if any at all) and has relied on word of mouth to build its clientelle. They don’t even have a sign on the door; but they have earned some positive reviews in the past. Their approach worked out great at first. They were growing in popularity at a very manageable pace and they were attracting all the right people to fit their persona/genre/style. But recently, it seams the clientelle has changed. All of the people I used to see every weekend have stopped coming (and I stopped going every weekend, myself), the music has changed, and the drinks are more expensive. Why the change?

Now that I’m working in word of mouth marketing, these kinds of case studies have been catching my attention. The enormous room could present a very interesting case against word of mouth marketing: when you rely solely on word of mouth, you relinquish a considerable amount of control over the medium and the message. However, any good PR can quickly become bad PR if the buisness is not prepared to manage an increase in interest and attention.

I’d love to hear the perspective and strategy of the Enormous manager and I’m interested in seeing how they react to the recent changes in their business. I may have to continue my regular visits just to see how things progress…. plus, I have to feed my cravings for their pomegranate margaritas

First, I have to disclose that this is part of a campaign managed by Pod Design, but I still have to rave about it because I’m totally addicted!

I’m not a huge fan of cops and lawyers TV shows… but this game has all the right elements

Here’s a little blurb about it from a recent article on Adotas:

Take a look at it! Play around and let me know what you think!