Jake Ludens’ Mental Environment

Several years ago, John, Jason and I joined up with the 30 Day Challenge, not the 30 day blog challenge that we are in the middle of now. Rather the 30 Day Challenge that is hosted by Ed Dale and several of his friends. In a nutshell, the 30 Day Challenge started out at a contest to see which affiliate marketer could make the most money in 30 days from affiliate channels. I will be honest and say that I have started several 30 Day Challenges and have never finished the full 30 days of courses that goes along with the challenge. I do watch Ed’s Videos and have an rss feed still live from his blog. However, it usually takes me a lot longer than 30 days to review all the content. It is a great resource for learning new tools and I thank Ed and his group for taking the time to post all the great information.

Yet one thing that always bothered me about the 30 Day Challenge was that while it is a great introduction to many of the tools available to online marketers, it created an army of “re-posters” and traffic exchanges. It created a lot of what I see as false traffic that really didn’t go to any product or service. Sure some people made few dollars selling e-books, or selling ad space on a site that had generated a lot of hits. The fact was that there was no substantial customer audience because no one was creating anything, most of the traffic was other 30 Day Challenge participants checking out each others sites, blogs, and now twitter posts. Sorry, I have great friends, but none of them want to buy anything from me.

This is why when I got an email from Ed this morning, bringing this very point to life, I was relieved. Thanks Ed. Here is a excerpt from the email.

And like the first point, I may have had a bit to do with creating
a problem!

I love leverage. “What’s new!”, I hear you say.

The ability to be a gatherer of information and then distribute to
your target market is a powerful weapon indeed. Like all weapons,
pointing it directly at your head is a health hazard.

If all you do in life (or perhaps more importantly from my
perspective, in your market), is be a “re-tweeter” or a
transmitter of other’s information. How do I say this… I believe
the technical term is…

“You’re stuffed”

I’m afraid you’re not going to get anywhere. It is only the people
who create content (or of course, products) that get ahead! Think
about it. It’s all very well being the neighborhood gossip and
passing on information to all and sundry (let’s face it, the
neighborhood gossip has their place) but they are only ever going
to be the gossip and eventually that gets tired and old.

From a financial perspective, “you’re stuffed”.

This should not discourage anyone from checking out the 30 Day Challenge and signing up, but keep in mind if you truly want to make money or simply to get a message out there, don’t get caught up.

I repeat, don’t get caught up in the “socialness” of social networks and social tools. Take a step back and realize that while it is great to have your buddies follow you on twitter, if you are just swapping each other links all day, who is the customer? where is your customer?

Last night I made a blog post about Greasecar.com and their use of a very poor slogan. After that we ordering a pizza and I started reading my newest issue of FastCompany. In this issue there is an article from Dan Heath and Chip Heath about the slogan, entitled “Kill the Slogans Dead”. Dan and Heath are the authors of Made to Stick, a book that should be a staple in your library.

The article hit on the idea that there is a lot of time wasted on groups coming up with worthless slogans and that slogans are no longer a valuable asset to a brand. I think that we have become so used to cleaver slogans that we look right past them. Marketers have realized this for awhile now and pushed another phenomenon that I am not sure what to call. It is the use of versions, sequals, types, 2.0, and other descriptors. If you aren’t following what I am describing, just watch cable television for about 10 minutes. CSI:Miami, CSI NY, CSI Torrington, Wyoming.

When I started in the Internet marketing world, it was all the craze to start naming the versions of your websites in the same manner that software developers have been doing all along, and thus was born Web 2.0. Wait a minute is Web 2.0 really a new form of slogan? It has the properties of a slogan in that it is creative, following the trend of the products it is associated with. Yet, it doesn’t describe what Web 2.0 is or how it can be used. Since Web 2.0 has been used so loosely as a buzz word, I think Web 2.0 really has become a new form of brand slogans.

Ok, so now we have an example of a slogan and a descriptor that really doesn’t fit and this is my point and what I think all marketers need to start thinking about. No longer can you put together just another cleaver slogan that is catchy and will stick with people. Now, with all of the worthless wording that is being thrown at customers, a brand name can still benefit from a slogan being associated with it, but that slogan needs to create buzz itself or at least thought.

Here is an example, if I decided to start using this as my brand and slogan, “JakeLudens.com Part of Web 3.2″, the audience that I have for my blog would be intrigued and wondering how I became part of Web 3.2, when most have only heard of Web 2.0. This would be much more beneficial than if I started using, “JakeLudens.com Purpose. Profit. Perfection.” Most of you would just look right over this and view my blog as just another Wordpress Blog.

So is the slogan dead? Does it need to be killed? No it isn’t dead, but the old way of using slogans needs to be killed and no more time needs to be spent thinking up cleaver slogans, time needs to be spent making slogans that make brands cut through competitive marketing efforts and tell audiences who the brand is and what it can do for them. We now have a market place where customers are very conscience of how they spend their money and the customer’s needs taking over the focus of the customer’s need to be cool.

I saw my first vegetable oil powered car yesterday. It was a small red truck with the URL www.greasecar.com

I checked out their website and the first thing that I read was their tag line “Save Money! Help the Environment! Reduce America’s need for foreign oil!”

This might be the first time I have ever read a tag line that was so political. I fully support the use of alternative energy and I just don’t think that political slogans are the best way to attract the public to a new concept such as driving your car on vegetable oil.

Today was a day full of shopping and overhearing things that were really out there, but I’ll get to that in a minute. First of all I would like to thank everyone who came out last night to our first Friday get together. While we didn’t make it too late of a night I was a little slow this morning

I got up this morning and worked around the house for a bit and then Diane and I headed out to do some shopping and grab lunch. Sounds simple enough for a Saturday. We went to Town Square here in Las Vegas and had lunch at The Yard House. (Awesome French dip sandwich!) Here is where it starts getting strange. While we are eating our lunch, the restaurant is mostly empty, but soon people just start filing in and we were surrounded. A couple sits down next to us and they both order a beer. The guy suddenly realizes that he doesn’t have his debit card to pay and freaks out. “When did you have it last?” the girl asks. “At the ATM last night, I must have left it, I am going to go see if it is still there, I’ll be right back.” And the guy leaves to go check an ATM machine. Really? does he think that no one else has used the ATM machine at Town Square since he was there the night before?

Okay, I let that one slide. Diane and I continued shopping and then later that afternoon we stopped in to a small wine bar call The Grape. Diane ordered her favorite glass of wine and I ordered a St. Peter’s Cream Stout. Just down from where we were sitting was a couple that had to be on their first date. Since the place was empty we could hear every word of their conversation. At one point in their conversation, the guy says to the woman, “Well you see, I make really bad decisions.” This was followed up shortly after by, “I have a very bad personality.” Now I am no match maker or love guru, however, I have a feeling that this guy is having a rough spell in his dating career.

At one point Diane and I were laughing out loud over the conversation that we could hear going on, and we came to the conclusion that sometime when people are really nervous their “inside” voice starts talking out loud. We headed out from The Grape and headed back close to home. We stopped in at Target for some more holiday shopping and picked up a rat to feed Sable, Diane’s python.

We decided to stop for a quick snack and to watch the Oklahoma game at a bar called Bilbo’s and this is were the sound bites were out of control. At the end of the bar was a cowboy from Texas who had been into the sauce for a few hours and was all smiles. The conversation turned to talk about how to make the hottest chicken wings. The bartender won with a hot wing sauce that consisted of pickled jalapeno pepper juice, cayenne pepper, crushed red pepper, hot wing sauce, and almost every spice that they had in the kitchen. After he explained his creation the cowboy at the end of the bar pipes up and says, “Damn son, that will make you reach for an ice cream cone to wipe with in the morning.” I howled out loud with laughter.

Next it was half time of the game and Dr Pepper sponsors a contest where students can win a $100,000 scholarship. Once again the cowboy gets in the mix and says, “Look at that kid, he is like what has God done for me, Dr Pepper just game me a 100K.” God has nothing on great advertising.

Back at the house now watching the new Chris Rock stand up special. Talk about the great things people say, I highly recommend watching this.

Wow, this is strange making a blog post so early in the day. It is First Friday here in Las Vegas and the weather is great in comparison to what I hear it is like back in Wyoming today.

For any of you who are not familiar with the Las Vegas First Friday events, check out the MySpace Page.

Even though our offices are not an official part of First Friday, we like to open up our office doors for a few hours to help bring our friends and clients down to support the First Friday events and the Las Vegas art scene. Old downtown Las Vegas has always been my favorite part of Vegas and the city has been doing a lot lately to renovate and make it the “happening spot” it is known for.

Since we are in the Holiday Spirit, we have a great theme for this month’s get together, Beanie’s. We were also lucky enough to get some great prizes donated for the Best, Ugliest and who knows what else. We also will have buckets for clothing donations if anyone wants to get rid of some stuff.

Well, I need to finish up some work and look forward to see everyone downtown tonight. Oh and since JohnHawkinsUnrated.com decided to Rick Roll me this morning in my comments section for yesterday’s post, I need to come up with a really good prize / payback.

Oh and last but not least – there is a Twitter Meet Up as part of tonight’s get together. If you aren’t familiar with the greatness that is Twitter, come on down and we can help explain it’s benefits.

I honestly think I have come up with my very own disorder. Now I just need a good pitch for the pharmaceutical companies. I know, I will use my real life story as the basis for my marketing pitch. Here it goes..

“Do you ever find yourself spaced out? trying to do five things at once? forgetting to spell check your Twitter messages? Well you may suffer from what is known as I, OD. That’s right you are not alone. Thousands of tech savvy people just like you also suffer from Idea Overload Disorder.”

Well what do you think? It could sell right? I mean after all Acid Reflux Disease and Restless Leg Syndrome didn’t even exist in the 90’s.

Actually, this isn’t far for the truth. Over the last 6 years the speed of the innovation on the Internet is not something that anyone could have kept up with or can keep up with now. One of the most difficult things that I have found to do is to focus in one direction when building new projects or improving old ones. Why? No, it isn’t because I drink to much coffee or can’t finish things I start, it is because there are some many solutions available for every question. I mean think about how many ways there are to change the color of your font in a blog post.

I am constantly looking for ways to stay focused on the project at hand. I start with To Do Lists (I love lists), then there is the Thunderbird Calendar, then there is the break down of what can I get done first, second, third, before next Winter. Needless to say it still gets chaotic.

So my post tonight really isn’t very deep, it is more a cry for comments. What tricks do you use to help combat being pulled away to every tinyurl that comes up on Twitter, Facebook, Email, Phone, Feed……? or Maybe I just suffer from I, OD.

Today while I was working on one of our client’s new websites and in between Twitter posts and IM’s, I came up with an idea for a new project. Don’t worry you will all get a glimpse of it soon. With this new idea I needed to come up with a new logo and I did so tonight with some help for two great sources of inspiration.

The first being a book that I grabbed off of the shelf at the office called Logo Lounge. My brother picked up this book a while back and I have seen several like it before. However, I highly recommend this one since it is simple. It consists of all types of Logos from all over the world and the book is categorized into styles of logos such as Typography, Initials, People, Birds, you name it. I went through this book tonight for about an hour looking at logos, some familiar others not so. I finally put the book down because I was getting frustrated thinking about how I didn’t want to “rip off” a logo from a product that already existed.

Instead, I started watching the Food Network and eventually found my way back to my laptop to give it another go. All the time Diane had been sitting on the couch taking apart dozens of picture frames that she has been collecting from thrift stores, clearance racks and the occasional yard sale. Since before we had moved in to the new house, we have had the idea to decorate our house with strange vintage advertisements, hence the collection of frames. To help with decor, Diane’s parents found two very old issues of LIFE magazine and gave them to us over Thanksgiving. How old? 1936. Oddly enough, beat up 1936 LIFE magazines are really not that valuable in terms of resale. What they are valuable in are the number of great advertisements inside of their pages.

Diane had carefully taken each issue apart and divided the ads into groups, Hygiene, Liquor and Oppressed Women. She then pitched each ad to me as if we were in an episode of Mad Men to see which ones I felt would be acceptable for the house. Don Draper, eat your heart out. Some I liked, others were just dull, or too hard to understand. One thing I did notice, advertisers used a lot more ad copy in the 30’s. When all was said and done we had decided on over a dozen new ads and Diane had them framed up. Looking at this new collection, it hit me how simple the logos for these companies really are, Johnnie Walker, Royal Typewriters, Electrolux, and even Ex Lax. All of these have simple logos made up of only great typography, no icons needed.

I booted up Photoshop and I had a new logo for my new project finished in a matter about 10 minutes. I love when inspiration hits and it makes you want to stay up all night coming up with more ideas.

All I have to do is post this photo and many of you are going to go crazy remembering all the great things you have gotten for the holidays over the years. Are you ready?

Ok to be honest I just wanted Jason’s ADD to really kick in tonight. (you’re welcome Jason!) This is a photo of just some of the great toys that I have been going through the past two nights.

On to a new topic for day 2 of the 30 day blog challenge. Lets see what could I blog about? I know Twitter! No I am not a guru, I will leave that up to John, however I do want to mention that according to the people in the know, my Twitter Nerd Level went up today because I set up a new Twitter account for Black Diamond Digital. Not that setting up a Twitter account is difficult, but what I did notice today is how effective a really well designed background image for Twitter can be.

Today we were able to create a Twitter page that really reflected the new direction that Black Diamond Digital is going. We blended our logo, colors and the newest model that was just in the studio a few days ago. Check it out and let me know what you think.

To take it a step further I was able to tie the images together with an eblast of an upcoming event that we are hosting. Same model, completely different design element, but still kept the the attitude that we wanted for Black Diamond Digital. I uploaded the eblast here.

Next, I updated the Black Diamond Digital Blog with all of the same updates and links. I did all of this in the matter of only a few hours and was able to reach three different audiences, from C level executives to just my crazy friends that have no problem wearing a ridiculous beanie for any occation, to Twitter users who may never set foot in Las Vegas.

This is a perfect example of the new age of advertising, direct market reach with little to no cost.

I am down to the last few minutes here of day one of a second 30 Day Blog Challenge. This time it shouldn’t be as difficult to accomplish one post a day for 30 days since I have no travel plans this month. So here we go…

This past weekend I helped my brother clean out his garage that had been filled with old toys that my parents brought out to us from Wyoming. Now, ironically my garage is filled with these toys, but I had a chance tonight to start going through them and cleaning them up to donate or sell. While I was unloading some of the boxes, besides being nostalgic, the thought came to me about how companies create flash in the pan buzz about toys simply for the holiday season. I wonder how many children beg for toys during the holiday season that only months before they had never heard of? I’ll be honest I know I did that as a kid and I am sure my parents were not too pleased that I lost interest only weeks after the holidays were over.

I feel this is exactly how the Internet has come to operate on a constant level, not just for holidays or special events. We are all glued to email, Blackberry, Iphones, laptops and desktops, waiting for the next buzz to come our way. It could be an email from your boss or the top story to break on Yahoo. It could be any number of internet guilty pleasures we have all come to embrace. Yet just like the toy that we begged our parents for each Christmas, we lose interest after a short time and are off to see what is new on YouTube.

The thing is, very few people recognize that this is how they are living their lives. Advertising people especially need to make sure they take a step back from the BUZZ in order to keep a window open so that they might be able to grab some of their customer’s very short interest span. (I would use attention span, but I don’t think any of us really pay attention) I think about how much time I spend, after I hear about a new innovation or marketing tool, waiting to see the practical use for it. Rather, I should be looking at what need it fulfills and why there is even a need in the first place.

Think about it, what need did the Hampster Dance really fulfill for anyone ? All these things did was kill thousands of hours of time and unimaginable amounts of brain cells. But wait… think about all the traffic that that webmaster got simple because of a flash in the pan?

It is no secret that I like to read and collect books, so when I see unique idea for a book it always grabs my attention. This is a book that I don’t think I will run out an pick up right away, but if anyone is looking for a gift for me, check out this book

Poop Culture: How America is Shaped by its Grossest National Product

Who knew or would have thought that you can write 232 pages about poop? This book comes from the great people who bring us The Poop Report