Tag: advertising

Fannypacks, Life, Death and Resurrection

Carl Setzer
Timbuk2 Fannypack Ad
Timbuk2 Fannypack Ad

Having come of age in the 80s, I spent several key years with the ever-glorious fannypack. I watched its death without concern, much like the supposed demise of disco and leg-warmers. Recently, I noticed the creeping resurgence of these little gems, along with up-turned collars on polo-shirts (I proudly support polo-shirts, even without the up-turned collar).

So, I found both joy and amusement when the ad above (for high-end bag-crafter Timbuk2) drifted through my inbox. A reminder, I guess, of the old adage “what goes around comes around”.

* For some strange reason (weird, aberrant psychology, perhaps), I kept typing “up-terned” instead of “up-turned”. 

An Ad That Will Challenge Your Notion Of Community

Carl Setzer

Take members of diverse groups, provide a safe space for honesty, and you, too, can create a piece like this. Danish TV2 did a brilliant job in breaking down social barriers in this short (3 minute) video.

 

Social Media Ads: Don’t Forget To Focus Geographically

Carl Setzer

Just saw an ad on Twitter for a service available in New York and San Francisco. Well, I’m in Seattle. I expect I’ll make my way to each of those cities in the next few years, but not in the near-term. It looked like a great food idea, but it’s not something I can do anything with right now.

What’s the problem, you might ask? Well, I expect they want their ads clicked on by likely customers. I’m not in that category, living a few thousand miles away. So, the few cents they paid for my click won’t turn into revenue, even if I love them.

Maybe, just maybe, these folks are looking at expanding to the Seattle area. But then you should have the ads go to a landing page for an expansion campaign.

Ads like these can be focused on geography. Pretty slick, giving you much more solid impact. And an essential tool to avoid wasting your online advertising budget.

A few years ago, one of my team-mates placed a Facebook ad but didn’t refine by geography. We had a great return on that if measured by phone calls. But most of those 100s of calls were from well outside our region. We would never be able to convert them to sales. So, a waste of money and time. It was easily fixed, but we spent a few hours of time answering gobs of out area phone calls.