New car sales and a naked man... UPDATE

This an update to one of my posts from last summer...

I came across one of the better commercial for a new car dealership this afternoon. Its for a dealer group in Norwell, MA. The Clay dealerships and their agency Boathouse Group get it. They understand how to disarm the buyer by poking fun at the retail auto industry and in the process gain an enormous amount of exposure not only locally, but internationally.

In a nutshell, the spot features a slightly overweight car salesmen, explaining the unseemly tactics traditional dealers will use to get your business. Why does it work, they get your attention as they guy disrobes as he describes how Clay will show you the naked truth about the pricing for the car that you're looking to buy.

The 4 spots debuted on YouTube.com back in early April and will soon appear on local cable. To view the spots and play a little game that helps re-cloth the nearly naked salesmen, go to http://dontgettaken.com/.

The only other auto dealership spot that I've seen in this same category would be the "Trunk Monkey" spots for Suburban Auto Group in Oregon. While the spots are fun and memorable, I don't think they do nearly as well at communicating a message that in the end distinguishes them from the competition as a place worthy of your business.

Bottom line for both is they get your attention and at the end of the spot your very likely to smile. And that's always a good thing.

I'll write more about this later, but thought it was important to point out that I discovered the Clay dealership "We'll Show You Everything" campaign on a great web site and blog by the authors of the book Punk Marketing: Get Off Your Ass and Join the Revolution. It's an easy ready because its both well written and insightful. Check it out.

Blogging Workshop Notes

This afternoon I led a discussion on the use of blogging for festivals and events. We covered a variety of topics from a basic overview of blogging as a communications tool to actually building a blog site on Blogger.

Here are a couple of key points to summarize the session.

1. Define the purpose and style of your event or organizations blog. What is it you want to say and how will you say it. For me, a personal voice works well. I basically write like I speak. You might want something a bit more formal if that works best for your intended audience, so it helps to know who you're writing for.
2. Select your platform. Is it a free blog like I use at Blogger or is a dedicated blog hosted on your own web site. Both have their advantages. If you're just getting started free is a great way to go. When you have some more experience, you can migrate your site to your own web hosting service which will give you a little bit more flexibility.
   
3. Define your look and what you want you want to say. Sites like Blogger provide a variety of standard templates which can be further customized with simple changes to colors and fonts. There are also a number of sites that provide pre-built templates some are free, while others charge per template or offer a subscription to the their site for access to their collection.
4. Add content to your site. How will you keep them engaged and coming back to your site? First, write about what you know. Keep it relevant to your target audience. If you're an arts festival, a good place to start might be profiles about your guest artists or about a style of painting that would be of interest to your readers. If you are a Parks and Recreation Department, you might write articles that talk about camping, crafts, game and related activities.
   
5. Quality is far more important that quantity. A question that's often asked is do I need to blog every day, and the answer is no. You should create new content on a regular basis to keep your readers coming back often, so if you don't have time to write a lot of content yourself, consider occasionally inviting a guest blogger to write about your topic or check out some of the sites that offer free content an a variety of topics.
6. Learn and grow as you go. There are blogs about everything you can think of, including blogs about blogging. Check out the links at the end of this article for some of the resources to get you started.
7. Finally, let me say thank you to the folks that sat in on my session this afternoon for your input.
   

For those who missed my session, here is a list of links to other sites to get some insight into building your own blog. I look forward to reading your blogs, and oh yeah... Welcome to the blogosphere.

General Reference sites

Wikipedia Blogging page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blog

Wikipedia List of Blogging Terms
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_blogging_terms

WeblogMatrix weblog comparison
http://www.weblogmatrix.org/

EFF: Legal Guide for Bloggers
http://w2.eff.org/bloggers/lg/

Blogging software or services

Blogger
http://www.blogger.com/

MyTypes
http://mytypes.com/

Word Press
http://wordpress.com/

TypePad
http://www.typepad.com

Free Blogger Templates

http://www.finalsense.com/services/blog_templates/
http://blogger-templates.blogspot.com/

Great blogs about blogging...

Andy Wibbels - Author of Blog Wild
http://andywibbels.com/

Chris Garrett's - The Business of Blogging and New Media
http://www.chrisg.com/

Yaro Starak's - Entrepreneur's Journey
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com/

ProBlogger
http://www.problogger.net/

Damn I Wish - Articles about Word of Mouth marketing and blogging
http://www.damniwish.com/

Other blogs to check out for ideas...

My personal Odd's and Ed's site
http://edempsey.blogspot.com/

My resume as a blog
http://edempseyresume.blogspot.com/

A news page for one of my clients using Blogger
http://dcanews1.blogspot.com/

Guy Kawasaki's Change the World blog
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/

Mark Cuban's BlogMaverick
http://www.blogmaverick.com/

Freakanomics
http://www.freakonomics.com/blog/

Monk at Work
http://monkatwork.com/

Presentation Zen
http://www.presentationzen.com/

Ted Conference Blog - really rich content. Don't miss it.
http://blog.ted.com/

Scott Adam's Dilbert Blog
http://dilbertblog.typepad.com/the_dilbert_blog/

Chicago White Sox official blog
http://whitesoxpride.mlblogs.com/

Ken Levine's - The World As Seen By a TV Comedy Writer
http://kenlevine.blogspot.com/

Jack Morton Worldwide Corporate Blog
http://360.jackmorton.com/

Delucchi+ Corporate Blog (Real Estate)
http://www.delucchiplus.com/blog/

Stumbling on Happiness Blog (Book)
http://www.randomhouse.com/kvpa/gilbert/blog/

Illinois Special Events Network Convention Update

Okay, so it's just past noon, but this is a good time to provide an update on the day so far. I attended two terrific sessions and a very insightful opening keynote.

Opening up this morning was Jodi Rudick, President of ADvisors Marketing Group. What a great way to start the day. Jodi's keynote was titled "Talking 'Bout My Generation" and it provided some wonderful insight into the differences and similarities of generations from Millenials (1982-2002), Generation "X" (1961-1982), Baby Boomers (1943-1964), the Silent Generation (1925-1942) all the way to the G.I. Generation (1901-1924).

To give you an idea of how impressed I was, I opted for her session following the keynote. It was well worth the time as it picked up where we left off and helped provide even more insight into the western world as defined by generation.

A hard act to follow for sure, but I new my next session would definitely be worth the time since the speaker was Ira Rosen, president of Entertainment on Location. I've know Ira for the better part of the past 10 years and I knew that he wouldn't fail to provide me some new insight into the process of strategic planning. The time was very well spent as it served as a great reminder of the value of strategic process, which has been a challenge as I've spent so much time in tactical mode lately. Thanks for the gentle nudge Ira.

Okay, off to lunch and the ISEN Skyscraper Awards. More this afternoon.