Hope Y’all are having a great Wednesday!
Josef Gordon is our next distinguished guest for our vlog series “Vujà Dé Presents.” Josef is a beyond talented songwriter and singer and there’s no doubt that you will be hearing his music on the radio and accepting Grammy’s and People’s Choice Awards. So sit back, relax, and enjoy getting to know Josef. #Goodthings
D
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Facebook ‘Like’ page. Check. Twitter page. Check. LinkedIn profile. Check. YouTube channel. Check. Check. Check. Check. Does it ever stop? Um, no. In fact, these are all needs instead of ‘should we have.’ As an extension of a website, the social media requisites encourage further dialogue with organizations and their ‘likers’ or fans. Some of the big boys that get social media right are Starbucks and Coca-Cola. When you have a chance, check out their Facebook ‘Like’ pages.
So, what are the next social media platforms you need to be familiarizing yourself with as they become relevant marketing vocabulary: (We know these are common knowledge for people in the ‘industry’ but it’s all about sharing the wealth).
1. Yelp- Think of this as the ultimate word-of-mouth marketing website. Here, you can post your business, hours, and services. Peace be with you if you have a lousy product or shameful customer service. Feedback is greatly encouraged and I personally won’t go to a business that has poor Yelp reviews.
2. Foursquare-To keep it simple, Foursquare’s purpose is to let your friends know where you are and to figure out where they are. Also, it is for collecting points, prize ‘badges,’ and in some cases free coffee, as some independent chains are utilizing Foursquare to drive revenue to their respected storefronts.
3. Vokle and Ustream- À and I were at a conference a few weeks ago, and Vokle will be a game changer. The concept is simple. Live online events. Great, you think, but you have the ability to monetize by charging for these events, which no one does yet. #ohyes. Ustream also allows for live events, check it out.
Are you someone that has no idea what we are talking about but intrigued, email me at dominic@vujadestudios.com!
D As always : Check out our Website Become a ‘fan’ on Facebook Follow us on Twitter
Since we devote an entire day to marketing/advertising and the various forms of, it thought it would only be fitting to examine the core of advertising. I am the kind of person that likes to know how things work, why they work, and what defines something (if you haven’t noticed), so to talk about advertising with out defining it just wouldn’t be right to me. Wikipedia defines Advertising as “a non-personal form of communication intended to persuade and audience (viewers, readers, or listeners) to purchase or take some action upon products, ideals, or services.
Often advertising is talked about in monetary terms, how much “ad dollars” or “Ad revenue”, this refers to the amount of money being spent “persuading” consumers to purchase or take action. Okay, but how does it work? The best Ads touch at a human emotion connecting you in someway to the product. This goes along with my blog on What Makes a Good Commercial.
Advertising is not some scheming tactic that is used to drain you out of every dime. Although some companies even view it like this, advertising is a form of communication allowing a company to voice its opinion to the public. Sometimes with out the help of advertising some of the worlds best non-profits would be non-existent. This communication can be found in many forms, from print, to radio, and most commonly television commercials. Hours upon hours of research goes into understanding consumers and developing the right way to advertise to the public.
I know that everytime I eat an organic apple, drink almond milk, and kick back with a gluten-free beer, advertisers are celebrating because they have made me believe its much healthier (which it actually is, but thats beside the point). Hopefully now that we understand the definition of advertising, we can move forward with a bolder sense, pushing the bounds and standing up to our name Vujà Dé (voo-ja day) meaning “never before seen”.
Feedback? Email me at james@vujadestudios.com or leave us a comment below.
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Spring Cleaning
When I moved to LA last year, I was eating dinner with some friends and the subject of detoxification came up, as it usually does for some reason. Coming from an ‘alternative’ health background (even though I believe ‘alternative’ should be mainstream, again, another conversation) I told my table that I am an advocate of the liver cleanse. Your liver is one of the most important organs in your body (checkout www.druglessdoctor.com for more info on that) and to keep it working at its full potential, it needs a good cleaning every spring and fall. This cleansing process is actually quite simple. As you can see right below:
Drink 1 quart of organic apple juice from the Health Food Store throughout each day for 3 days. Add 90 drops of Phosfood Liquid and 20 drops of Peppermint Leaf to each quart of apple juice. The pectin in the apple juice and the Phosfood Liquid helps to soften and flatten the stones in the gallbladder and liver. The Peppermint Leaf will aid digestion. Eat as normal these 3 days, but for your evening meal on the 3rd day you may want to eat a light dinner, as you will be drinking the olive oil mixture before bed that evening.
If you cannot tolerate that much fruit juice, or are diabetic, use distilled water instead of apple juice. If you use water, you must increase the amount of Phosfood Liquid. Put 135 drops of Phosfood Liquid and 20 drops of Peppermint Leaf in each quart of water and drink 1 quart throughout each day for 3 days.
WARNING: You must follow this step. If you don’t take the Phosfood Liquid drops, don’t go on the program. If the Phosfood Liquid does not soften the stones before they come out, they will remain hard and can tear the ducts on the way out. You don’t want this to happen. It is recommended that you follow the entire program. But always check with you doctor first.
2. On the third day after the last meal (before bed), mix the following foods together: A cup of high quality olive oil, a cup of pineapple juice, grapefruit juice, and/or natural spritzer. Add the juice of one whole lemon (organic is best). Stir this together.
The pineapple juice or spritzer serves the purpose of helping to get down the olive oil. You hardly taste the olive oil. (This program originally included epsom salt. But this was too harsh on most people.)
3. Immediately after you drink the olive oil, go to bed for the night. Put your knees up to your chest. Lie on your right side for half an hour. The oil will go to the gallbladder and liver. These organs will not know what to do with all that oil, so they will over compensate and throw off the stones. It will be best for you to lay on your right side as long as you can while falling asleep.
4. Take herbal laxatives next morning. The next day, take an herbal laxative to flush the stones out of the colon. Organic black coffee also works.
5. Colon Cleanse. We have seen better results when patients have colon irrigation prior to the flush. This clears the pathway for stone elimination. We also encourage, after your flush, to have another colonic.
6. All Females who pass stones and are estrogen dominant (determined by saliva testing) should take A- F BetaFood from Standard Process, three daily, until their estrogen levels become normal.
7. Frequency. If you are really sick (cancer), consider going on this once a month for a few months. Everyone is different. There are no absolute rules. For prevention, go on it at least once a year. Others do it more frequently.
You will notice that the stones often times will be green and float. You could retrieve the stones from the toilet and save them in your freezer. People are always amazed that you passed gallstones naturally.
Special Note: Stones in the gallbladder are the result of eating a high-acid diet. All foods burn to either acid or alkaline ash after digestion. All meat and dairy products, plus nearly all cooked produce burn to acid. The body needs to stay slightly alkaline to remain in good health. It makes acid as a by-product of metabolism, but makes no alkaline. This must come from the diet. If the diet is primarily animal foods and/or cooked produce, the body must rob the bones of calcium (an alkalinizing mineral) to keep the bloodstream from becoming acidic. But before going to the bones, the body raids the gallbladder. From the bile stored there, it removes the organic sodium (another alkalinizing mineral). What is left behind is cholesterol, which hardens into stones. To protect against gallstone formation change your diet. Taken from Dr. Frohm’s “Health Quarters
Monthly”, June 2002
Reasons for a Liver Flush
Problems with:
Blood Sugar
Chemical Sensitivities
Cholesterol
Digestion
Dizziness/”Shakes”
Dry Tongue and Mouth
‘Elimination’
Extreme Fatigue
Eyes
Female Reproduction
Hair
Headaches
Mental Issues
Muscle/Skeletal Problems
Nail Fungus
Overall body pain
Respiratory
Skin Problems
Susceptibility to Infection
Weight Gain
If you have read this entire blog, you must have questions, and I definitely want to hear from you!: Email me at dominic@vujadestudios.com!
D
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So you have an idea. Fantastic. Now you need to market the product with the whole marketing mix, and all of that good stuff. I believe one aspect of marketing that is extremely overlooked is copywriting and not copyrighting (also important, but we’ll save that for a legal blog) because your product and or service will live or die with the words that you use to advertise your product. Today there is a plethora of advertisements with copy (Internet: Your website, Google Ads, and Facebook Ads Print: Magazines, Newspapers TV: Adverts with words, etc.) Sooo, what types of copywriting are most effective? Not to be vague, but it does depend on your audience, the target, education level, among others, but taking a some advice from our posthumous mentor, David Ogilvy offers these suggestions for effective copy.
*When choosing a font, good typography will assist people reading your copy, while bad copy detracts readers. Do Not set your headlines in all caps. Our eyes are creatures of habit and we are used to reading in lower case.
*Always include the price of the product/service you are selling. When price is omitted people may ’turn the page.’
*Lastly, when writing a ‘long advertisement’ address your audience like you are writing each of them a personal letter, instead of ‘mass email’ language. One quote from Ogilvy on this: You cannot bore people into buying your product. You can only interest them in buying it.
Again, this subject could be a whole series, and it may well be. What are some of your favorite written adverts? Email me at dominic@vujadestudios.com!
D
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Creativity is probably one of the most misconstrued words in the English language. Actually, to quote dictionary.com, creativity is “ the state or quality of being creative.” Shocking. The second definition is quite better, which is, “The ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, originality, progressiveness, or imagination.” Indeed.
Oftentimes, marketers, advertisers, and people that get paid to have a ‘creative’ label use mediums that are more visible to express creativity that will reach more masses. But if you think about it, someone had to be ‘creative’ to:
-Decide that postcards should be rectangular instead of circles (in most cases)
-Realize that a chair is best suited with four legs instead of two or three
-Develop a knife, fork, and spoon. Most likely they were tired of continuously cleaning their fingernails.
True, us ‘creatives’ do come up with creative ideas, but sometimes I think the ‘creatives’ bread and butter is packaging and promoting to magnify the true creative ideas. How do you get into your creative zone? Connect with me at dominic@vujadestudios.com!
D with special appearance by À
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J’aime teishoku
This week, I’m going to look at three more colors and their multicultural marketing correlations. On a side note, I wonder what the multicultural marketing color correlation equates to too much sun on one’s body over the weekend? But seriously.
Purple
Italy-Church, authority, Latin America-Death (fun times), US-Nobility, law, bravery
Red
Africa-Death and bloodshed, China-Communism, celebration, good luck, joy, fertility, Greece-Love and good luck, India-Birth, fertility, Mexico-Religion and vibrancy, Scandinavia-Strength, UK-Authority, government, power, US-Warning, passion, spice
White
Africa-Victory and purity, China-Death, mourning, purity, India-Death, rebirth, serenity, US-virginity
There is a book that I checked out at my local library that delves into global color graphic schemes, and it’s a VDS approved read:
“The Designer’s Guide to Global Color Combinations: 750 Color Formulas in CMYK and RGB From Around the World,” by Leslie Cabarga. Available throughout the Los Angeles Public Library branches.
Have you ever had a foreign faux-pas? Email me at dominic@vujadestudios.com!
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Color Me Bad, Good, and Everything In-between
Over the next few weeks, I’m going to concentrate on the importance of choosing colors and their different connotations. From a marketing perspective, color is extremely important especially from an international point of view since each culture have their own ‘color story.’ This week we’re going to look at three examples of multicultural marketing colors:
Black
Germany-Death, hopelessness, Mexico-Mourning, respect, USA & UK-Death, sophistication, formality
Blue
Germany-Loyalty, formality, Greece-National pride, India-Heavens, love, truth
Israel- Holiness, Scandinavia-Cleanliness, USA-Justice, official business
Green
Arab countries-Holiness, Egypt-Fertility, Germany-Hope and conservation,
Ireland-Nationalism and Catholicism, Malaysia-Danger associated with forest and diseases, USA-Safety
Again, this is going to be a little series of marketing blogs. What’s your favorite color? Email me at dominic@vujadestudios.com!
D
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Are You the First?
“Can you pass me a Kleenex?” So ingrained into our modern day vernacular, Kleenex did not even register as a spelling mistake on my blog document. Why didn’t I say ‘Puffs’ or ‘Scotts’ well, it’s not because they are not great facial tissue brands (which I will gladly accept samples), it’s the fact that our mentality and marketing psychology equates a facial tissue to Kleenex, the FIRST facial tissue, albeit not necessarily the best. What that brand equity and recognition occurs, oh how sweet it is to be a brand manager.
The point being, what are you the first in? Establishing yourself as the ‘first’ in something does not take more than a little brain power and creativity, and with the power of the internet today, you can brand yourself as “the first taco truck on Ventura after 3 pm,” or “The first Thai restaurant in Little Armenia.” All joking aside, what are you or your company first in (yes, I just repeated myself)?How are you letting the world know? What sets you apart? We can help, and I’d love to hear from you! Email me at dominic@vujadestudios.com!
D
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Offense Marketing vs. Defense Marketing
After listening to a trusted speaker discuss armor for battle this past weekend, I knew that an often-overlooked topic is offensive and defensive marketing.
What do these terms mean? Well, in marketing, to have an offensive mindset means that you are in attack mode hustling and advancing your product and/or service through promotions, public relations, advertising, or Twittering, Twittering, Twittering. Pretty much anything to disrupt the category leader. On the hand, a defensive mindset usually involves the strategies the market leader enlists to hold off the attacks of the offender. Let’s take a closer look:
Defensive Marketing:
· The market leader should only pursue defensive strategies. It is unwise for a firm to pretend that it is the market leader for the purpose strategy selection. The market leader is the firm who has attained that position in the consumer’s mind.
· Attacking yourself is the best defensive strategy. Introduce products that are better than your existing selection.
· The leader needs to always block strong offensive budges by the competitor. If the leader fails to do so, the competitor may become entrenched and gain and take over market share.
Offensive Marketing:
· The challenger’s (the one with the offensive strategy) should be the strength of the leader’s position, and not the challenger’s own strengths and weaknesses.
· The offender should seek a weakness in the leader’s strength.
· Attack on a narrow front
One example of a successful offensive marketing strategy came from FedEx. FedEx had a broad mindset when trying to overtake UPS. Like other companies that are number two and three, FedEx tried to increase market share by broadening their product lines to compete with UPS by offering a wide array of transit times including overnight, two-day, and three-day delivery. FedEx’s success came when they set their focus on next-day delivery and won the coveted ‘consumer’s mental image’ with the slogan: “When it absolutely, positively has to be there overnight.”
Are you a new business? What offensive strategies are you implementing? Or are you an established entity that enjoys market share? Let us know your strategies! Email me at dominic@vujadestudios.com!
D
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