The professional networking site LinkedIn just raised $53 million in capital, which pegs the company’s valuation at around $1 billion. Technology analysts are wondering if that’s a tad high. How much social networking sites can extract from advertisers and subscribers, after all?
Media/Marketing/Advertising
$25 gas card for out-of-town visitors
Drive to Richmond. Stay in a hotel for two nights. Get a $25 gas card. That’s the pitch of an ad currently running in Roanoke, Washington D.C. and Hampton Roads. The Richmond Metropolitan Convention & Visitor’s Bureau, which promotes the Richmond region as a tourist destination, is paying for the spots. The ads link to… Read more »
Chariots of PR Gold
Buck Ward just batted for the PR cycle. His new Segway of Richmond shop in Shockoe Bottom garnered a full-length story in Style Weekly, one in Brick Weekly, and two stories in the Times-Dispatch. There’s also a lengthy plug on the Richmond Region Visitor Center, which promotes the area as a tourist destination. (That would… Read more »
CEO Tube
Randy Copeland, CEO of the high-end computer manufacturer Velocity Micro, doesn’t take himself too seriously. When Velocity marketing associate Josh Covington sat Copeland in a green leather chair, handed him a pipe and yelled, “Action!”, Copeland played along, deadpanning into the camera, “Hello friend, I didn’t see you there.” “Yeah, that was my idea,” Covington… Read more »
Ad Report Card: The lady in the tub
This ad scores where most fail: it draws our attention. But do the ad’s creators, the local firm Becker and Calliott, rely a little too heavily on sex appeal?
T-D looks in the mirror
Newspapers have a hard time covering themselves. On Sunday the T-D looked inward. John Reid Blackwell, wrote about the mighty struggles at the paper’s parent, Media General. “In the past two decades, the company’s strategy has been to build a newspaper and television empire in the Southeast and to combine and find collaborative opportunities at… Read more »
Really easy being green
Virginia Business Magazine goes green for the April issue. (No, the paper doesn’t feel recycled, but the stories are all about the greening of businesses around the Commonwealth.) Like every piece ever written about the subject, there’s a ubiquitous “Not-easy-being green,” Kermit-the-Frog reference (p.25). The thing is, it’s not that hard to go green. Virginia… Read more »
Fudge the time card
I recently paid a contractor for a job very well done. And as always happens when I pay invoices, I’m mystified by the pay-by-the-hour billing system. Does it include water breaks or web surfing? Do contractors take time off to visit the bathroom or take a quick napsky and keep the clock running?
Feel-Good Marketing
Cause-related marketing, as the marketing technique is known, owes its origins to an American Express program from the 1980s, when the credit card company donated funds to help restore the Statue of Liberty. In years since, the marketing style has become an increasingly popular tool for companies to create a positive association among potential customers…. Read more »
Make Your Own Web Commercial…just don’t fall of a ladder
A number of startups think there’s a market for helping businesses make videos of their products – sort of a QVC for the masses. In Tuesday’s New York Times, Bob Tedeschi describes the nascent TalkMarket: “It begins with an online tutorial of how to shoot product demonstration videos: light well, change camera angles, speak as… Read more »