Social media can make or break a brand, a lesson Maytag learned the hard way.

Home appliance giant, Maytag, is facing some tough times ahead after Heather Armstrong (a.k.a. Dooce), number 26 on Forbes’ list of Most Influential Women in Media, had a less than satisfying experience.

You do not want to get on the wrong side of a woman with over 1 million twitter followers.

Maytag gave Heather the run-around after her brand new washing machine broke, take a look below to see her comments.

Will Maytag learn from this experience and possibly offer a public apology? Would that be enough? At this point it is the best option, and quite possibly the only option. Over at T3, Kate Donaho offers these final words:

However Dooce and Maytag settle the issue of the broken $1300 washing machine, it’s yet another cautionary tale for brands that a meaningful social media presence is an essential element of public relations.

Other companies have felt the wrath of social media. These examples will hopefully be yet another warning of how influential social media can be.

Can colour be owned?

In one word, yes. If you have ever taken a look at a colour swatch book you will know there are seemingly endless amounts of options, but those options are quickly becoming limited. For example:

The colour magenta is fully owned by T-mobile. Is this for real? Yes. Deutsche Telekom, parent company to T-mobile, has the full rights to the colour and has taken legal action against a book-on-demand publisher, and the above logo, engadget mobile for the use of it.

What’s Next?

Think about some of the great brands of the world. Think about the colours associated with them. What happens if all of these colours get trademarked? Forget about coming up with new ideas, how are designers supposed to come up with new colours? Their hands will be tied in almost everything they do.

Copyrighting colour is as futile as the copyrighting of a celebrity’s names.

I’ll leave you with a quote from an article on Six Revisions.com (be sure to check out the Six Revisions for a more in-depth analysis on color in design):

Marketing research has found 80% of visual information is related to color. It’s not just a green, a red, a blue, or a magenta. It’s “Starbucks Green”, “Coke Red”, “Gap Blue”, and “T-Mobile Magenta.”

What should we do in the way of marketing in these times?

It’s the goal of marketing to define Who to talk to, What to say and How to say it.

It’s a good time to re-evaluate and make corrections as to what works – this is something marketers should be doing on an on-going basis but it’s more relevant now then ever. Bring clarity to what is important and understand your target audience. It’s the goal of marketing to define Who to talk to, What to say and How to say it. In troubled times it’s important to be more precise with your messaging – but continue to move forward – don’t hide in the shadows.

The immediate reaction is to cut the marketing budgets, which many are doing. The long-term perspective is that a lack of presence will negatively affect the marketing equity you’ve built up, reducing consistency and differentiation in the mind of the target audience. Remember, consistency and differentiation are the two most important things in successful marketing.

For example: customers stop hearing about the widgets made by Company X, but Company Y has continued a steady presence in the marketing mindshare game. When I need to buy or upgrade my widget, which company am I going to purchase from – X or Y? I don’t advocate spending funds that don’t exist, but retreating from the marketing game completely is the surest way to decline. Recognize that many of your competitors will do absolutely NOTHING so anything you do will have a larger impact today and in the future when things get back on track.

What To Do Right Now:

1. Define what is critically important about your business or service.
2. Define who is REALLY your most desirable customer, and don’t be afraid to lose the ones that aren’t profitable.
3. Look at your current marketing tools: are they in need of revamping? A redesign of your website or new print ads is a wise investment to keep your message fresh and top of mind with your customers.
4. Find innovative, creative ways to keep yourself in the game. Use less expensive forms of marketing to be creative, innovative and forward thinking.
5. Under-promise and over-deliver.
6. The key is not to overspend, not stop altogether – be innovative not excessive. Pick and choose your marketing tools – keep them sharp and ready to use to keep yourself in the game.
7. Stand out from the crowd.

When the Great Depression hit the United States in the 1930s, Kellog’s continued to push out advertisements even though sales were declining.

Revisit the advertising battle between Kellog’s and Post cereal in the 1920s. When the Great Depression hit the United States in the 1930s, Kellog’s continued to push out advertisements even though sales were declining. Post cut back their marketing, which seemed to be the best thing to do at the time but turned out to be a huge mistake. When the recession came to an end, Post found themselves out of the cereal race because of the advertising efforts made by Kellog’s. Check out TrueYourMarketing.com for a more in depth analysis of advertising in a recession.

Whether it is an online business or a cereal company, advertising is one of most important divisions of a company.

There has been lots in the news lately about Coke and Pepsi, so I thought it fitting to continue on with that trend here at Words of the Web. Coke is launching a new social media campaign as a part of its Open Happiness philosophy.

What makes people happy? Coke is going to find out.

Coke is sending three bloggers around the world to find out what makes people happy. Director of Coca-Cola’s office of digital communications and social media, Adam Brown, says the new media excursion is “about telling the story that involves Coca-Cola, that involves the attributes of what Coca-Cola is about, optimism and joy.”

If you’re waiting to hear who these bloggers are that will be sent around the world with their traveling costs covered on top of a salary, you will have to wait a little longer. 14 days to be exact. An online vote is being held at Expedition206.com where 9 finalists remain.

Read the original article on Marketing Magazine.

New hardware, new peripherals, a refined look and a larger screen make the new iMac better than ever.

As my MacBook Pro is getting older and older, I was debating the purchase of a Mac Pro. A visit to the Apple website today has completely changed my mind. At first glance, the new iMac looks like an incredible upgrade from the previous version without the dreaded cost increase some may expect.

The new iMac comes in a 21.5 or 27 inch monitor, putting many personal TVs to shame. With the large monitor comes new option to upgrade to a ATI Radeon HD 4850 graphics with 512MB video card. These new options open the door for the increased game production already underway for Apple computers, something that once played a large part in keeping younger generations away from using Macs.

21.5 inch iMacs start with 4gb of RAM, with the option of upgrading to 8gb. 27 inch iMacs can go all the way up to 16gb. For those of you who don’t know what this really means, let’s just say you can have nearly every program you own open at once and your computer will not slow down because of the massive amounts of temporary memory in use. Home PCs tend to have less than 2gb of RAM (a very rough, non-scientific estimate).

There are too many specs to list here, so I urge you to check out the Apple Store to read more for yourself. The last thing I want to leave you with is this:

Apple has designed the first multi-touch mouse. It does everything a normal mouse does (clicking, scrolling, etc), but with no [visible] buttons or scroll wheels. I have not used the mouse yet, but imagine it has a similar feel to the iPhone or iPod touch, which are incredibly accurate. Hopefully Apple has come up with a successful redesign of the mouse because the last one button mouse was quite a let down for many users, myself included. Take a look at the video below for a walk-through.

I am very excited to test drive one of these new gadgets when I next visit an Apple retail store and would not be surprised if I walked out with one on the spot.

Do you think these new products are going to have a warm welcome, or is it just another one of the seemingly endless products Apple released that will be forgotten about in a few months?

All images are property of Apple Inc.

Over at The Happiness Machine, Mike Lynch brought this ad to my attention. Not only does this ad baffle me as to how it was created, but it will instantly attract everyone that visits the home page.

This ad steps outside of the conventional skyscraper ad with its interactivity. If you want the ad to stop, you can click the ’stop’ button on the top right, but that is not the incredible part.

The most amazing part of this banner is what happens when you hover over the menu.

Hovering over the menu stops the animation, allowing you to use the menu with no interruptions. When you remove your mouse from the menu area, the ad continues!

Enough talking about it, go take a look at it before it’s gone!

There is a common list of journalistic ethics that tend to be followed quite religiously throughout North America, such as being fair and balanced. There are, however, exceptions to this rule. Some individuals tend to break some of this code to gain an advantage in their respected field of expertise, but these individuals do not even compare to the blatant disregard for ethical boundaries that the Fox News Channel seems to have.

The documentary Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism sets out to prove to the world that this major source of American news is greatly corrupt and pushes its right-wing views on the public. Many instances are shown where anchors and hosts take one small phrase or action and completely blow it out of context. What this documentary refrains from mentioning is the agenda of the documentary itself.
The constant barrage of accusations towards the Fox News Channel concerning bias in its reporting is not met with any opposition, mainly because the documentary did not interview or talk with any current news station employees – which in itself breaks Article 6 of the American Society of Newspaper Editors’ canons of journalism. Article 6, better known as Fair Play, is about giving people a chance to defend themselves. Aside from some ex-news anchors and a few anonymous people that actually did the opposite of defending Fox, no current Fox employees were featured on the documentary.

While this documentary obviously carries some bias in it, many good points arise. The most prominent point to discuss is one that has furiously made its way around the discussions of multiple courses offered at the University of Western Ontario – large conglomerates control the vast majority of news the general public sees and hears. Rupert Murdoch and Fox News Channel President, Roger Ailes are both accused of controlling what news (and how much of it) to cover.

I will leave you with that, and encourage you to watch the documentary for yourself and do some follow up research. Leave your two sense below.