From the Department of Faint Praise

Don Jones had this to say in the Venture Deal blog today: "I went to a viral marketing talk yesterday by the CEO of www.rassak.com.  I’ve been to several viral seminars by others and they’ve all been
disappointing – they haven’t illuminated much – sort of like a faint,
annoying light bulb that isn’t bright enough to allow you to read. The talk I just went to was a little better." He then goes on to list some things he heard at the talk.  Thanks… I guess. If you want the full skinny, the talk is recapped here.

Online Video Show "Marketing Voices" Features Rassak

Jennifer Jones’ Marketing Voices podcast featured interviews with Rassak client, BigFix Marketing Veep David Appelbaum–and me.

It was fun to do this. Jennifer’s production crew at PodTech asked us to send over background video and imagery.. and they edited together a nice piece.

Jennifer’s got a cool background. She has her show on PodTech.net. And her consultancy markets professional service firms in venture
capital, investment banking, management consulting, wealth management
and private equity.  She’s a good person for an entrepreneur to get to know.

Before starting her firm,, Jennifer was SVP and GM for Regis McKenna. Before Regis she was a VP at Ketchum .. and before that a
broadcast journalist. She worked as both reporter and producer at  local and
national news operations.

Here’s her Marketing Voices show (14 minutes plus or minus):

1 calorie

My mom often tears ads out of magazines and sets them aside for me. She always gets it right and I love that she knows what IÕll like.  I was especially impressed with this find though, as she had no idea I drank Diet Coke for breakfast. Oh, I do, I do. And the ad is great.

Have you seen this ad? It works in so many ways. 

Coke must have done some good research to figure out that people were drinking the DC with breakfast, or for breakfast.
Diet Coke definitely isnÕt a commonly accepted breakfast beverage. With
this ad, occasional Diet Coke breakfasters (CanÕt you just picture
them? They would never drink a real live Coca Cola Classic) just got
the green light to make It their official morning drink. Those who wake
up craving Diet Coke have been vindicated and shown that they are not
alone.  And other Diet Coke drinkers have been invited to expand their
use of the product.

The ad is part of a four-part series of ideas for people short on ideas on how to incorporate more Diet Coke into their day (see them all at dietcoke.com). 

For caffeine drinkers whoÕve never thought to drink such a thing with their eggs, itÕs been presented as something novel. People love that. And caffeine. And all by saying ÒGood MorningÓ, and putting a coffee sleeve/jacket/glove on it. Brillant, elegant, subtle, not obnoxiously-aspirational advertising. 

IÕm going to visit my mom this weekend and she already gave me a clue about one of the next ads sheÕs torn out for me. The hint alone shows me that either sheÕs getting to know me better everyday or that IÕm becoming an easier target for marketers. 

Or maybe itÕs that market research has come so far good marketers now know their target like a mother knows her daughter. 

I’m about to sell you something.

1. You know how when you watch a video on YouTube, you always have the option to send it to a friend or watch it again??

2. So, do you also know how when you wake up from a crazy or amazing dream, youÕre totally convinced that anyone would be fascinated by it and you feel a serious need to tell someone every detail about the dream and possibly their role in it?

3. Ok, so you also know that when someone tells you about their dream, their version is always boring and you never feel that intense mystery and magic that they felt during the dream, right?

4. WouldnÕt you like to experience that magic that they feel and let them in on the whimsical genius of your own dreams?

Since you definitely answered "yes" to these four questions, you already convinced yourself that you need DreamTube, which, at the end of a dream, gives you the option to send the dream to a friend or to dream it again.

Now that I have proven there is a demonstrated need, IÕll be looking for investors so I can start raising some capital to work out the technology. Once we are able to see each otherÕs dreams, things will never be the same again.

New Ray Hopewood Vlogumentary Airs

See More Ray Hopewood