Sunday Tidbits

For all Sundays starting today, I would be (re)posting a few good reads here and there which I've shared during the entire week in my other social media sites. These may be of interest to marketing people, to social advocates, or to those who simply love to discover new things and learn about new stuff out there.

Now that the formalities are done, here's the roundup of all links that caught my eye in the week that was:

On Gender and Sexuality

"Now there's a headline I thought I'd never get the chance to write. Turns out that while Pope Benedict XVI has gone around the world campaigning against the rights of gays and lesbians to get married, he's overlooked the fact that his own ship isn't really in order", says Michael A. Jones in The Pope's Gay Sex Scandal.

"What does having a set of ovaries have to do with directing a film? It's through her eyes that she sees, not through her mammaries or anything else", says Jeremy Renner, quoted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer in Women directors face 'celluloid ceiling'.

On Politics and Governance

"Administration candidate Gilbert Teodoro on Thursday balked at calls by the Catholic Church to ban condom ads, saying it is a form of censorship and is in violation of the Constitution", reports the Philippine Daily Inquirer in Condom ads ban a form of censorship, says Teodoro.

On Marketing

"As a marketing tool Twitter gets much more interesting and useful when you can filter out 99% of the junk that doesn't apply to your objectives and focus on the stuff that matters", says John Jantsch in 7 Insanely Useful Ways to Search Twitter for Marketing.

"Social marketing budgets are constantly going up, according to 'The CMO Survey' from Duke University's Fuqua School of Business and the American Marketing Association", reports eMarketer in Marketing Budgets Spiral Towards Social.

On WTF is Wrong With This Picture?

"Police said the parents had become so addicted to the life they were leading online, and the daughter that they were raising there, that they appeared to have not taken seriously their responsibility to their real daughter", reports The Sydney Morning Herald in Couple let baby starve after becoming obsessed with raising a virtual daughter online: police.

Photo Credits:
[.]Guyandbooks by Babble.com

Creative Block

We've all had our share of creative blocks and it's quite the hassle when you're on a strict timeline. Sad to say, I've had a rather major one last night which stretched out to around 3 pm this afternoon, that after giving up on the possibility of an all-nighter even if I went to bed at around 4 am. I was working on a mock campaign for a famous brand of flipflops (as you may gather from the post before this) on hours on end when I hit a creative block. But, I have to admit that my creative block turned out to be fortunate, at least for me and Emily who've had enjoyed a lot of my unblocking activities.

I came across this article (via Lifehacker) where several creatives have shared their ways of overcoming creative block and, after having had read through the whole thing, I couldn't believe that I share the same tactic as one of them.

Minutes after I hit a brain fart, I turned on my speakers full blast with pop screaming at my ears at no end. Lulled me to sleep for the better part of it so it wasn't really that much help. This morning, however, I wrestled with the laptop again to come up with the awesomest mock campaign ever. But, sleepy mornings always have their way so I stood up and mindlessly ambled towards the fridge. It was then when I caught myself preparing for yet another episode of experimental cooking.

Again, the first target was the box of strawberries that filled Emily's fridge. I just couldn't get my mind out of why she purchased such a huge stash but never have the time or energy to prepare them according to her liking? I'm off to the rescue then! So for breakfast, we had strawberry pancakes, thanks to the left-over pancake mix from last time's cookfest.

I went back to my laptop soon after but was still stumped. That meant cheesy marble potatoes! But, with all those in my belly, I knew there's no way I'm not doing dessert. Being the desperate person that I am, I hit the fridge once more only to find apples and, uhm, more strawberries. Oh, and beer! And what's an experimental cook going to do with those? Try to whip something out of all of those, of course!

And, whip something I did, though I have no idea what that something would look like, let alone be named like because Supercook was of no use to me that time. But, lo and behold, I managed to come up with a dish that delighted Emily for the most part (and filled her room with a pungent smell of Red Horse beer). Topping it off with vanilla ice cream buried in the inner crags of Emily's fridge, I was able to come up with ala mode! Whoever said that beer and ice cream does not go together must not have discovered this gem of a dish!

Who's saying I have creative block now? I think, for the most part, we never really do run out of creativity. We never exhaust our capacity to be creative. It's just that when we do try to focus it on only one thing for long periods of time, we level the task down to routine and, well, we all know what happens next. So, what do you do? Simple. Break the routine and you'll be back to doing awesome tasks in no time!

Speaking of awesome, I shall post photos and recipes of my newly-discovered dessert within the week so stay tuned!

Photo Credits:
[.] Buildingblock.eu

Monkey Business

I'm getting my hands dirty with a bit of a training on email marketing, thanks to a few good people back in Ateneo CCE and IMMAP who pooled just the best people in the industry to mentor us. Name drop: Chinie Hidalgo Diaz! Who is she? Oh, just the only certified email marketer in the Philippines who runs this little nook in the interwebs with the name Desktop Diva! I would not want to sound like a fanboy of some sort but... OMG!!!1!!one!!1!! Okay, now that I'm done with that, let's get on with another name drop: Elaine Uy of Yehey!

Anyhoo, as I said, this month's marketing venture is email marketing and one week in on the class and I have to say, in my most nerdy state of mind ever, that I am enjoying it! What's not to like when you've got a superkaduper email marketing campaign builder on your side: Mailchimp! I never knew something of such caliber offers their services (albeit at limited features) for free. It's fairly easy to use, even for the less skilled among us when it comes to coding. I could talk about it all day, if only I don't have a deadline to beat so I'd rather have you visit their features tab to learn more.

But, perhaps more than the features that the site offers, I personally adore their customer service! You see, I've only registered for a "Forever Free" account this afternoon only to find this in my inbox:

Click image to zoom in

As it were, my account is unable to send emails temporarily due to a random MailChimp Review of my usage. For an email marketing campaign, that would have been totally negligible save for the fact that said campaign depends on sending emails! I had no idea what I was in and I didn't know exactly who to consult! If it were indeed random then there was no use asking my class facilitators for what are the odds that they might have experienced the same, uhm, hassle that I had. Why, of all instances, did it happen a day before my deadline?

Was it because I used an organization's name of which I'm not in? Well, I had to because I was doing a campaign for the organization's brand! Was it because I used a personal account with a Gmail domain and not an email affiliated with the organization I had to promote? I had no choice! What email was I supposed to use?

So, being the obedient consumer that I am, I answered a survey that came with the email, along with a rather lengthy email explaining the predicament that I was in and why I had to be in it in the first place. After a few hours, as promised, I got a response:

Click image to zoom in

And all I could ever say was "Wow!" (without any hint of sarcasm whatsoever, trust me). Now that's email marketing for you right there - building relationships with consumers through a deep-seated understanding of what the consumers need with a touch of personalization. Just that one little phrase meant all the world to me. I felt important enough to merit a personal response!

Now imagine how this would apply to your consumers. Never mind the long explanation. Forget the statistics. As long as you are engaging them (us!) the way they want to be engaged, then it's all smooth sailing for you!

Great job, Mailchimp! You just made my day.

---

A snippet of a forum reply I sent a while back in response to the people who've been having problems with Mailchimp. (And I thought I was the only one!) On the consumer side, I felt the need to laud MailChimp for it's response to my query after having had defended my claim to an account. On the marketer side, establishing good ground with consumers enable, if not empower, them to root for your brand even if everyone around them feels otherwise. I guess I'm one empowered consumer from here on out!

Hey hey!

It seems like everyone has been experiencing the same problem I experienced. But, as Mailchimp promised, I got mine resolved within 24 hours (or 6 hours, to be exact). I'm guessing you have been subject to a "random" review of some sort and, as such, were redirected to a survey which asked all these questions. At the end of the page, you're asked to provide additional information to help speed up the process of assessing if your account should be validated.

Here's what I said:

1. I am a student enrolled in a digital marketing diploma course which touched on email marketing

2. I was tasked to come up with a mock campaign for a certain brand which I am not affiliated with but needs to work on it for the grade

3. I had to email in my campaign to at most two email addresses thus ensuring that no spamming activities will ever be done in behalf of the account I created.

I got a response within 6 hours, and with a personal note at that! (More here because I felt their efforts deserved a place in my little nook in teh interwebs)

Perhaps the moral of the story is that there are people out there who are very much willing to help you out even if all you see are snapshots of a monkey determined enough to take over a postman's job. Just let them know the rut you're in (in the most humane way possible, please?) and everything would be perfectly okay. After all, relationships work best in marketing and I'm guessing that they have a clear grasp of that being an email marketing service that they are. Hope this helps!

Photo Credits:
[.]Leannele.com