Seiden Says

By: Ellen Pratt

During the presidential race of 2012 be on the look out for an increased online and social media presence from all candidates. President Obama’s campaign is already on track to spend $35 million in online advertising alone this cycle. Compare that to the $16 million online spend in 2008 and you have quite the large increase.

Though online media spend is only a small fraction of what candidates spend on advertising overall, the upward trend will only continue as more and more political campaigns become well versed in the social sphere. 

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By: Pharyl Weiner

What do hotel owners do when they want to get their name on the map? They brand themselves, which is exactly what happened on August 16, 1954 when Ramón “Monchito” Marrero was asked to create a signature drink for the Caribe Hilton’s Beachcomber Bar in San Juan.  It took three months for him to create the world’s first piña colada - a drink that would appease the hotel’s celebrity clientele and umbrella-drink connoisseurs for decades to come.

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By: Arfa Rehman

Crate & Barrel’s new 3D Room Designer is like a fitting room – for your furniture. It allows you to view a piece of furniture in a room in your house. How? Simply take a picture of a room and email it to your nearest Crate & Barrel store with the room’s dimensions. The 3D Room Designer then digitally cleans up your room, removing the furniture and allowing you to place Crate & Barrel merchandise into the room when you visit the store.

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By: Benjamin Schechner

Like most sodas, Pepsi originated as a drink in a drug store’s soda fountain. Pepsi’s birthplace was Caleb Bradham’s pharmacy in North Carolina. As a tribute to himself, Caleb called his creation, Brad’s drink. However, he later decided to rename the drink based on its ingredients: carbonated water, sugar, pepsin, vanilla, cola nuts and rare oils. Thus, Pepsi Cola, named after its two main ingredients, was born.

By: Arfa Rehman

Amnesty International’s anti-domestic violence ad installed in Hamburg, Germany in 2009 was the first of its kind – it responded to people looking at it. The poster used an eye-tracking camera to change the image as soon as someone looked directly at the poster. An innovative approach to reinforcing the message that domestic violence “happens when nobody is watching.”

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By: Benjamin Schechner

One man, Roy Raymond, felt so uncomfortable and embarrassed while shopping for lingerie for his wife that he was driven to change the system. As a result, he opened the first Victoria’s Secret in Palo Alto, California. Through the design of the store, specifically the layout and wood paneled walls, the store was supposed to create a comfortable environment for men to shop for lingerie. Regardless of how comfortable the store actually made men feel, the store was an automatic success and after a few years, he sold the brand for $1 million. The Victoria’s Secret stores, today, still have a similar layout and design as the original store, but the target audience has definitely shifted from men shopping for their wives or girlfriends to women shopping for themselves.

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By: Rachel Metter

As Friday the 13th rolls around for the 3rd time this year (Mayan apocalypse, anyone?) we take a look at the origins of one of the most common superstitions. There are multiple theories about the exact origins of the “knock on wood” phenomenon. It’s been proposed that it came from ancient times when trees were considered sacred. Another belief is that knocking on wood prevents the devil from hearing what you’ve said. It’s also been rumored that Irish people used to knock on wood to thank leprechauns for wishing them luck. We think we’re gonna go with the leprechaun one…

By: Marjorie Kalomeris



Fitting in well with their key concept of space management, IKEA created the world’s smallest store—on a web banner. When you hover your mouse over the advertisement, the tiny pictures magnify to reveal 2,800 IKEA products. Click on any of these pictures and get redirected to the page where you can purchase the product.

This space-conscious company sure knows how to use digital advertising to their advantage.
 
Link to the store

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By: Arfa Rehman

The new MacBook Pro on display in Apple stores is tilted 70 degrees. Why that exact angle? Carmine Gallo’s research on the Apple Store experience reveals that the reason the screens in an Apple Store are angled the way they are, apart from aesthetic reasons, is to invite customers to engage with their products. Apple Store employees use an iPhone app to tilt all screens to the same angle so that customers can readjust them to their own ideal viewing angle. This tactic, along with allowing customers to use the devices to surf the web, listen to music, read e-books and play games, creates what Gallo calls a “multisensory experience,” which ultimately helps promote brand loyalty.

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By: Ellen Pratt

The names were withheld to protect the signers. If independence from Great Britain had not been achieved, the signers would have been guilty of treason, a transgression punishable by death.

By: Yael Warach

In May 2012, the German company known for its widely popular alcohol (and too-funny to prounce name) finally aired its product on television. could be found in most bars but never on TV. Amanda Blanco, brand manager for Jägermeister and VP at Sidney Frank Importing Co. commented, “We felt that it was important to speak to our core consumer [of 21- to 29-year-old men], and in order to do so we needed to have a presence on television.” What’s more—between 1948 and 1996, you wouldn’t see liquor ads on TV at all—there was a self imposed ban from the industry that was finally broken by Crown Royal.

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By: Arfa Rehman

According to the 2012 global rankings released by the Effie Effectiveness Index on Monday, McDonald’s is the world’s most effective brand (for the 2nd year in a row). The Effie Index, launched in 2011, recognizes global companies with the most effective marketing communications ideas. It also named Unilever the world’s most effective advertiser, and Ogilvy & Mather the world’s most effective advertising agency network.

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By: Pharyl Weiner

After the first celebration of Mother’s Day in 1908, Grace Golden Clayton decided to celebrate 210 fathers who died in the 1907 Monongah Mining disaster in West Virginia.  She chose to celebrate on the Sunday closest to that of her deceased father’s, but the holiday didn’t catch on and her celebration was forgotten until Nixon’s proclamation of Father’s Day in 1972.

By: Ellen Pratt

And he only received a “B-” for his effort! Robert Heft, the designer of the current version, took exception to this grade and issued his teacher a challenge: if Heft’s design proposal was accepted by Congress, his teacher would change his grade to an “A”. By presidential proclamation in 1958, his design was officially adopted as the US flag and Robert Heft received his “A”.