Archive for January, 2007
eriksr on January 31st, 2007
Well well, a little late to the party but an interesting press release just landed on my desk courtesy of PR Newswire. In it, Dominos toots its own horn about how it (well, JWT, really) created a series of viral videos that appear to have been successful. Mazel Tav, Dominos and JWT, I look forward to the inevitable case study.
What gets me is a note found at the very bottom of the release. Although I haven’t exactly scoured the Internets, I haven’t seen this note anywhere but on PR Newswire’s copy of the release:
NOTE TO EDITORS: We love to feed the media! Call the Domino’s Public Relations Department at +1-734-930-3741 to order a piping hot Domino’s Pizza for your newsroom or studio.
HUH? OK, benefit of the doubt time: You don’t specify whether the pizza is free. Fine. But seriously — are you trying to buy goodwill and, therefore, coverage? God, I hope not. And does this sort of thing have to go on a press release for god’s sake? Can’t you just put it in your Email sig line so people like me can’t kvetch about it?
Reporters should be paying for their lunch so they don’t become sock puppets and heels. I’d love it if you clarified this.
Full copy of the release follows.
UPDATE: Found a link to a 12/27/2006 release here with a similar footnote
UPDATE 2: You can find a follow-up to this (and read about people who successfully ordered a pizza) here
—————————————————————————————–
Jan 25, 2007 04:30 America/Vancouver RSS
Domino’s Revealed as Creator of Popular Internet Videos
Colorful Videos Launched to Create Buzz over Anything Goes Deal(R)
ANN ARBOR, Mich., Jan. 25 /PRNewswire/ — Domino’s Pizza announced its involvement behind an entertaining viral video series that is capturing the attention of millions in the Internet community.
Domino’s took an off-beat approach to promoting its new Anything Goes Deal Contest along with its advertising agency, JWT. In order to introduce its new Anything Goes Deal pizza promotion — where any large pizza, on any crust and with any toppings is just $9.99 — Domino’s and JWT launched a non- traditional, full-scale integrated marketing campaign featuring a groundbreaking contest that uses eBay.com to offer more than $250,000 worth of premium items for just $9.99 each. The contest offers both great daily prizes and several large prizes available until its end on Feb. 5.
To create interest in the large items and promote the overall program, Domino’s and JWT created larger-than-life characters who all shared a desire to offer big ticket items for the same low price. For each large prize, a series of viral videos were launched on popular social networking sites. Each video series eventually revealed the featured character’s intent to offer a great item for only $9.99. MySpace(R) profiles were also created for these characters to help drive traffic to the video sites and generate chatter about the videos’ quirky content and interesting characters. Additionally, the URL to the contest Web site, www.anythinggoesdeal.com, was included in the videos to drive traffic to the promotion site.
The first of three viral video series was used to tease and then announce an opportunity to win a Saab(R) 9-3 convertible AERO on eBay for just $9.99. This series, called “MacKenzie gets what MacKenzie wants,” featured a spoiled rich girl who wanted a blue car for her birthday but got a red one instead. Her whining persisted until she got the car she wanted and then, much to the surprise and delight of video viewers, she decided to offer her red car on eBay for only $9.99.
With over two million views across multiple video sites, the popularity of the MacKenzie videos earned a top spot on several video sharing Web sites — an honor generally reserved for the top-watched videos on the Internet.
“We took an unusual and innovative approach to creating buzz about our latest Anything Goes Deal promotion,” said Ken Calwell, Domino’s chief marketing officer. “The purpose of the viral videos was to engage and entertain consumers with the storylines and get them talking about the characters, the contest and most importantly, Domino’s Pizza.”
Domino’s second premium prize was revealed with the “Rich Man” video series. This series introduced a man who eventually offered a Hitachi(R) plasma TV on eBay for $9.99 to prove just how rich he really was.
“By creating a compelling storyline available in the places where the Domino’s consumer spends time, we were able to capture their interest, keep them engaged and communicate the Anything Goes Deal in an innovative way,” said Jeff Bitsack, executive creative director, JWT New York.
The Anything Goes Deal Contest, which kicked off on Jan. 1, began with a winner receiving a Saab(R) convertible for only $9.99. This Friday’s lucky winner will drive away with a Harley Davidson(R) XL 883 Sportster. (Complete contest rules can be found at www.anythinggoesdeal.com).
How to Get in on the Hunt
To get more information on how to participate in the Anything Goes Deal Contest and find the next great item for just $9.99, visit www.anythinggoesdeal.com. Once on the site, consumers can order an Anything Goes Deal pizza online, learn more about the contest and participate in games of skill which, if done correctly, will provide a clue needed to find the prizes on eBay. Domino’s Anything Goes Deal Contest prizes will go to the first qualified buyer to locate the item on eBay and “Buy it Now” for $9.99. Consumers can also opt-in through www.anythinggoesdeal.com to receive e-mail blasts and/or text messages alerting them about the hunt.
Domino’s Pizza is the official sponsor of the Anything Goes Deal Contest.
About Domino’s Pizza(R)
Founded in 1960, Domino’s Pizza is the recognized world leader in pizza delivery. Domino’s is listed on the NYSE under the symbol “DPZ.” Through its primarily franchised system, Domino’s operates a network of 8,238 franchised and Company-owned stores in the United States and more than 50 countries. The Domino’s Pizza(R) brand, named a Megabrand by Advertising Age magazine, had global retail sales of nearly $5.0 billion in 2005, comprised of $3.3 billion domestically and $1.7 billion internationally. During the third quarter of 2006, the Domino’s Pizza(R) brand had global retail sales of approximately $1.2 billion, comprised of more than $700 million domestically and more than $400 million internationally. Domino’s Pizza was named “Chain of the Year” by Pizza Today(R) magazine, the leading publication of the pizza industry and is the “Official Pizza of NASCAR(R).” More information on the Company, in English and Spanish, can be found on the web at www.dominos.com.
Source: Domino’s Pizza
CONTACT: Dana Harville of Domino’s Pizza, +1-734-930-3741, or
Dana.Harville@dominos.com
Web site: http://www.dominos.com/
http://www.anythinggoesdeal.com/
NOTE TO EDITORS: We love to feed the media! Call the Domino’s Public Relations Department at +1-734-930-3741 to order a piping hot Domino’s Pizza for your newsroom or studio.
eriksr on January 31st, 2007
I’m jumping on the “blog about Vista” bandwagon here for just a second, people, so bear with me.
We all love our eye candy, don’t we? It appeals to our increasingly short attention spans. But it’s time we got rational, people. The graphical user interfaces (GUI) of operating systems impact the way we work, and Microsoft hasn’t improved the functionality and ease of use of Windows at all with Vista. When your next upgrade cycle comes along, do everyone a favor — your employees and your clients — and switch to OSX. It’s more stable, more secure, and a damn sight friendlier to use.
Mac OSX
Me, I’m an OSX kinda person. It is elegant, k? It works. It doesn’t get in your way, it has ways of helping you to ease clutter…just enough eye candy that you feel good about yourself, not too much to get distracted. You access your most frequently used stuff from the dock at the bottom of the screen and your widgets — err, docklets, whatever — fill you in on the rest. Want to install software? Drag it from your CD or download location to your hard drive. BAM, done.
Mac OSX is a fine-tuned performance machine built with a positive, efficient experience in mind. It’s like a Ferrari.
Windows Vista
The Windows interface hasn’t changed since Windows 95. It was ugly then and it is STILL ugly now. How many of you have three columns full of useless items in your START menu? How many of you have dozens and dozens of icons on your desktop? How long does it take you to find anything with that cluttered interface?
I’m willing to bet Windows users waste at least 30 minutes a day trying to find a file or program to launch. It is partly a lack of education on how to organize digital assets…and partly crappy design decisions by Microsoft.
Adding eye candy to the Windows interface, as Vista has done, is like adding a new paint job and hawt rims to a crusty old Cadillac.
Linux
Ah Linux. Used predominantly by males (94% according to a recent study) and, despite efforts to make it friendly, defies the newbie. Its interfaces are on par with that of Windows…meaning its ugly.
But here’s what I’m thinking. Thanks to modern processors, we’ll increasingly see average people running more than one operating system on their computer. You can already see that happen on Mac’s with Parallels. I think people may decide to run Linux, one day…and a big reason for that (EYE CANDY TIME) can be seen in the video below. I only hope that, as all those nice nerds continue to develop Linux, they consult with some of the usability experts out there to ensure they create something useful to everyone…not just geeks 
Thanks to this video, which shows off what Linux is capable of, I consider Linux a riced-up Toyota. Cheap, but damn cool looking all the same.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD6BiKnLzck]
eriksr on January 30th, 2007
Microsoft. Exchange. Say those two magic words and the eyes of IT managers everywhere light up 
with dollar signs.
To those not in the know, Microsoft Exchange is the software that makes corporate email possible. It is what lets you see other people’s schedules when you want to book meetings with them. Stuff like that. To use it, you need at least one server — which can be anything from your average desktop computer to something like the HAL-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey — and someone with the know-how to both set it up and secure it, because it is riddled with security holes. It’s necessary if you want to do business today.
Fortunately, there are alternatives. Any small firm, virtual or otherwise, can use services such as Bluetie or Zimbra.
Hosted messaging and collaboration
For up to 20 users, Bluetie will host the equivalent of a corporate intranet. You can create accounts for your users, store and share files, share calendars — whatever. All you need is an Internet connection, really, and a reasonably modern computer. Totally free. Trading up to a pay account means paying $4.99 per user per month, and each of those users gets a whopping 10GB of storage space each — among other things.
The other service I mentioned above, Zimbra, is similar to Bluetie. Zimbra has a much swankier interface and offers a wiki collaboration space.
Because the service is hosted, you’re not responsible for maintaining the hardware, filtering out spam, and dealing with the weekly updates and patches that are par for the course with something like Exchange. It’s all done in the background for you.
Don’t make me say it…
Okay, okay…these two services are enablers. Yuck. Any small team or group that is thinking of banding together to work on a project or build a business should seriously consider these services vs. whatever happens to be running on their laptops. Working in a shared virtual space is not something to be underestimated.
eriksr on January 29th, 2007
Life in a PR firm ain’t easy — as far as technology goes. How often has a reporter asked you to send them a high-res .JPG, but you only have those un-openable .EPS files? How about when you need to send a specific type of video file? Or you’re dealing with someone who, god forbid, doesn’t use Microsoft Office and cannot read your .DOC’s and .XLS files! You’re up the creek, folks, you’re up the creek.
But it’s okay — I’m here to help. The solution doesn’t cost a thing, either.
Head on over to Media-Convert. Media-Convert let’s you upload files up to 100MB in size to convert. Once it is complete, you just download it and poof – You’re done! No need to install weird crappy software (thus getting IT all worried) because the service is web-based. 
Now, you want to talk about privacy issues? They certainly exist. But hopefully, for the most part, you’ll just be converting stock footage or photos or innocuous recordings. Regardless, caveat emptor.
Here’s a list of some of the document formats the site can deal with:
Raw text, HTML, XHTML, Microsoft Word, RTF, PDF, PS, Open Office, Star Writer, Pocket Word, Word Perfect
CSV, dBase, Microsoft Excel, Pocket Excel, Lotus 123, Quattro Pro, Star Calc, Open Office spreadsheet
MathML, Star Math, Open Office math
Microsoft Powerpoint, Star Impress, Open Office presentation
Image formats:
AVS BMP CIN DCX DIB DPX FITS GIF ICO JFIF JIF JPE JPEG JPG MIFF OTB P7 PALM PAM PBM
PCD PCDS PCL PCX PGM PICT PNG PNM PPM PSD RAS SGI SUN TGA TIF TIFF WMF XBM XPM YUV
CGM DXF EMF EPS MET MVG ODG OTG STD SVG SXD WMF
And tons more. The site can also resize and compress movies and pictures, too. I pray that this site survives the pending Dot Com Bubble Burst 2.0
eriksr on January 28th, 2007
The brilliant, wonderful people over at FeedYes have answered my prayers. ALL OF THEM. Well, I exaggerate. A little. (Before I go on: You do know what RSS is, right? If not, the Washington Post will tell you here)
If you’ve ever wanted to be alerted to any changes made to a Website, FeedYes is what you need. After creating an account and logging in, this web-based service will alert you to any changes made to a web page of your choice via an RSS feed. Before FeedYes, the only way to do something like this was to find, download, and install software that you often had to pay for.
So, taking into account the typical PR professionals’ short attention span, here are the obvious benefits of FeedYes:
- Competition: Track the product or press release/media pages on the Websites of your client’s competitors to get alerted to their news
- Corrections: If you asked for a correction to an article, set FeedYes to monitor the page the article is on — no need to keep coming back every hour, on the hour!
- Events & Awards: Have any of you EVER had an event/award coordinator get back to you when you leave messages asking for call for papers information? No, you’ve got to sit on the phone and hound ‘em! Well, FeedYes ought to help here. Set it to monitor the event/award homepage (and whatever other strategically selected pages you may need) to get a heads up when speaking information is published
- News monitoring: What’s the matter? Does Health Management Technology not offer an RSS feed? Screw ‘em — make your own
eriksr on January 25th, 2007
Okay, file this under “its probably been around forever but I never noticed”. Big-Boards is a tracker for forums and message boards. Not only do they list the top 25 most active ones on the Internets (”Gaia Online”, an anime roleplaying community, is top of the list), but they give you METRICS! METRICS, dear readers, are what ease the pain in the world of public relations.
I know, you’re asking yourself how this site could possibly be of use. Well, next time you’re working on a PR plan and struggling to come up with a project more interesting and imaginative than, “Generate buzz with an INSERT DUMB IDEA THE CLIENT WILL NEVER APPROVE contest”, you can now include a plan involving message boards.
What the hell are message boards?
Never seen a message board? Think of the comments threads under blog postings. See how people respond to the initial entry, and sometimes even talk amongst themselves? Well, message boards have been around FOREVER and have elevated communication to an artform. Tens of thousands of people read and participate in all manner of discussion at all hours of the day.
Participating in a message board is an excellent way of reaching your target market and speaking with them on a one to one basis. Thanks to Big-Boards, we can now say to our clients, “We want to start a discussion on the Random Forum Here site. If it works, we’ll be generating as many as number of impressions daily.”
A word of caution
To be blunt…Don’t Screw With Forums. They will bite you on the ass, and they never forget. Treat them like any other sovereign organization: Before posting on a forum, contact one of the administrators or moderators and explain why you want to post there and how they or their readership will benefit.
There are firms out there who have raised the stealth aspect of this to an art-form, but they are treading a fine line. By inserting yourself into the discussion and posing as an active participant, you may well get your message or schpiel in without getting caught…but please consider the backlash if you are discovered. It won’t be pretty.
