Branding Yourself: The Sea World Car

Never hurts to be creative. Never hurts to put your company on a product like a car. Try combining the two. Sea World has this down. The Sea World car has people staring at the company's name every day. What do you think of the Sea World car? What have you put your company name on?

The Importance of Customer Involvement

Much of journalism today is citizen-oriented, or citizen journalism, as it's often called. This means there are sites where regular people can posts stories, photos, and videos for the public to view. Often, news-sources won't be able to send out reported or photographers in time to capture an event, so they'll display user photos, instead. For example, the worst of the recent storm in NYC that many speculated to be a tornado lasted less than 30 minutes. The New York Times has a gallery of user photos for the storm and its results.

Think about how popular social media is today.  Blogs often succeed because of user interaction.  Allowing users to send in photos, comment on blog entries, and share stories on Facebook and Twitter has become essential to success.  So, think about it. What have you done to interact with your customers and keep them involved with your business?

Want more money? Write a book!

Have you ever noticed that when a movie becomes successful, a line of books come shortly after. Disney did this with Pirates of the Caribbean. They created a series of young adult books about Jack Sparrow. I remember reading book versions of The Mummy Returns and Hallmark's Arabian Nights. And today I came across a new series of books based on the hit TV show Glee. You can visit the site for the book, which FOX advertised on Facebook, here.

How successful are these knock-off books? What have you done similar to this?

Capitalizing on Your Product and Promoting it at the Same Time: Disney ElecTRONica

Disney California Adventure's summer Glow Fest didn't go over well with most Disney fans. Disney hired an outside contractor to create it. Personally I liked it, and it must have had some success because Disney is now bringing something new inspired by Glow Fest that capitalizes on its upcoming film "TRON: Legacy." You can view a preview of this light fest below, images taken from the Disney blog.

Looks like it'll be entertaining and promote TRON at the same time. Disney is very good at that. Last year, they had a Showboat Jubilee show to promote "The Princess and the Frog," which went over very well. Princess Tiana still performs near the Rivers of America every day near her conveniently placed merchandise. But, no worries, if you go to her show, you can get free Mardi Gras necklaces.

How can you take advantage of your product and give it legs through various campaigns? What have you done?