The Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed This Week: Friday, June 14, 2013
IBM’s Smart Ideas For Smarter Cities - via On The Trendy Road
Photoshop Bus Stop Prank Puts Random People In Ads - via Huffington Post
The Transformable Press Ad Is More Than Meets The Eye - via Adverblog
Art Everywhere project to turn UK into ‘world’s biggest art gallery’ - via Design Week
The subtitles hijack - via Adverblog
The Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed This Week: Friday, June 07, 2013
Children’s Cancer Center Rebrands Chemotherapy As “Superformula” - via Buzzfeed
NIVEA Creates An Ad That Charges Cellphones With Solar Energy - via Design Taxi
#PubLooShocker Restroom Drunk Driving Stunt Will Scare the Crap Out of You - via Mashable
Fake Subway Ads From PBS Critique Reality TV - via PSFK
Urban Ears Scratch Poster - via Adverblog
The Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed This Week: Friday, May 31, 2013
Unlock Free Wifi With Scrabble High Scores - via Adverblog
Taco Bell creates buzz by sending custom-made rings out to some socially savvy super-fans - via USA Today
Gladiator Energy Drink: The USB Can - via DigitalBuzzBlog
Concept Coke can splits in two for sharing - via CNET
Corona Let The World Wait: 365 reasons to raise a bottle - via Creative Review
The Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed This Week: Friday, May 24, 2013
Domino’s Pizza Brazil creates DVD movies that smell like pizza - via Cool Age
Whitney Museum’s New Responsive Logo Design - via Under Consideration
Microsoft Hides Secret Job Post In Bing Homepage Code - via PSFK
“Tweet & Shoot” Makes The Internet A Trainer For Tennis Star Jo-Wilfried Tsonga - via Fast Company
Fiat Teams Up With DC Comics To Keep Kids Safe - via Design Taxi
The Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed This Week: Friday, May 17, 2013
Roadtrip Forever: Transport Accident Commission’s social media road trip - PR Examples
This Bug Spray Billboard Is Actually a Giant Insect Trap - via Gizmodo
Arrested Development: Tobias Funke’s ‘Insert Me Anywhere’ sizzling reel and new photos - via Zap2It
Disney Lets Fans Create 3d Printed Versions Themselves As Star Wars Stormtroopers - via iO9
If Fonts Could Speak by Uniball - via Digital Synopsis
The Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed This Week: Friday, May 10, 2013
Lenticular Photo Used To Secretly Convey Hot Line Number To Abused Kids - DIY Photography
Chalk Billboard, Redrawn Twice Daily, Highlights Freshness at McDonald’s - via AdWeek
The Beer Turnstile - via Creative Review
Target builds giant dollhouse inside Grand Central to show off its Threshold collection - via AdWeek
Arrested Development to Bring a Real Bluth’s Banana Stand to London, LA, NYC - via Eater
101 Series: What is a Boilerplate?
It may be the most important paragraph you will write about your company. You have most likely seen it, but may not known what it was called or its origin. What is it? It is your boilerplate.
In public relations, the boilerplate is the last paragraph of a press release that describes the company product, service or brand featured. This should contain facts about the company (where are you based, what do you do, private/public, services, clients, awards) as well as some compelling information, your mission, positioning (first brand to do such and such). In the digital age, it should also contain hyperlinks to your website and/or social media profiles.
Plainly, it’s the “About Us” section that is copy and pasted onto every press release, fact sheet and any additional marketing communications materials – even on your company’s LinkedIn and social media profiles.
So where did this term come from?
The term boilerplate actually dates back to the 1800s when manufacturers of steam boilers would attach a metal plate on their boilers as a sort of trademark so people would know who made the boiler and where it was made. In the early newspaper days, they had “boilerplates” or actually printing plates for each company they covered regularly, so they could easily include the company background with stories they wrote. This saved time in the printing process. The term stuck.
Here’s an example of a boilerplate for our client, Liebherr:
About Liebherr
Driven by innovation and characterized by sophisticated, elegant design, Germany-based Liebherr Corporation brings the best of Europe to the refrigeration category in North America. Visit www.liebherr-appliances.com to view Liebherr’s full product line of freestanding, built-in and fully integrated refrigeration and wine and humidor cigar storage units.
Check out the other installments of our 101 Series posts:
The Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed This Week: Friday, April 26, 2013
Painting Just Got More Fun: The Installation “FOR(){};” Is A Video Game Projected On A Canvas - Amusement
Callaway “Hits The Links” With LinkedIn For Social Networking Campaign - via Callaway Blog
Tate Modern brings a guided museum tour to Twitter to highlight its Lichtenstein exhibit - via The Verge
Prada Is Looking For A Few Good Pens! (Brand Holding Literary Contest For Prada Journal) - via Style Bazaar
Clever French Literacy Campaign Will Make You Look Twice at Ads - via Flavorwire
The Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed This Week: Friday, April 19, 2013
Dove’s “Real Beauty Sketches” Will Make You Think - Mamamia
Ask CT Food: Snap an Instagram pic, tag, receive an recipe - via PR Examples
Kids Company uses Vine to ask for help to make neglect stop - via The Drum
Kmart’s ‘Ship My Pants’ Commercial is Going Viral - via TIME
Microsoft Brings Wi-Fi Enabled Benches To The Park - via Creativity Online
The Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed This Week: Friday, April 12, 2013
The WWF deforested football field - Adverblog
Bubba Watson, Oakley create hovercraft cart - via PGA.com
Burn After Reading: Farenheit 451 Matchbook Cover - via PR Examples
The Netflix Arrested Development Posters Are Finally Here - via Gawker
Kit Kat Breaks, Melts, Paints Candy Bars Into Lovely Posters - via AdWeek
Brands and April Fools’ Day 2013
April 1st also known as April Fools’ Day has, in the past, had people on their toes wondering if they’ll run into any pranks. Then a funny thing happened. Brands started to put on their own pranks and jokes. In fact, Google’s yearly pranks have become something to look forward to.
Why would a brand want to play a joke on their customers though? There might be a few reasons. One of the most important reasons is the potential press coverage the brand may receive. The right story at the right time can get your brand front and center in from of very large audiences. Then there’s the engagement factor. With the rise of social media, it’s become more and more important to connect with customers and fans. Pranks or jokes allow the brand to create humorous content that can have a much higher “viral” factor than brand content might normally have. It can also help to humanize the brand and show a lighter tone.
Of course, some people are bound to take the brand jokes as serious news. Fans of Scope’s Bacon Mouthwash voiced their displeasure when they found out it wasn’t real and that the prank actually began prior to April 1st. Even Google, whose jokes tend to be popular, faced some backlash over the “shutting down YouTube” prank, from users angry over their actual shuttering of Google Reader. So while an April Fools’ joke can be beneficial, you have to know your audience and make sure the jokes don’t touch on sensitive subjects.
Below is just a sampling our how brands “pranked” the public this year (even the White House got involved).
1) Scope’s New Bacon Mouthwash
2) Vowel-less Twttr; Vowels For Twitter Plan To Cost $5/month
3) Seamless Offers Deluxe Delivery By Models
4) US Army (Grumpy) Cat Recruitment
5) Virgin Air Announces A Glass Bottomed Plane
7) Sony Animalia Tech For Pets
8) The White House’s Special Message by Kid President Not The President
9) Lunch Meat DVD Kiosks From Redbox
10) Sour Patch Kids Candy Launches Shower Patch Kids Body Wash
The Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed This Week: Friday, March 29, 2013
REcalling 1993: NYC art project turns pay phones into virtual time machines - DVice
Quadrocopter fleet stuns Londoners with giant hovering Star Trek logo - via Engadget
Clever Weather Billboard - via Reddit
CVS App Brings Aisle Browsing to Life on Mobile Screens - via Brand Channel
Making bad graffiti, better: Artists Correct Graffiti To Promote Education - via Creative Review
The Five Things You Shouldn’t Have Missed This Week: Friday, March 22, 2013
VW Ad Targets Viewers Who Fast Forward Through Commercials - PSFK
Volkswagen: The Search Engine Ad - via DigitalBuzzBlog
A hotel made from cake opens in London - via Bitter Wallet
The Google Graveyard - via Slate
Tesco Uses Google Street View for Virtual Easter Egg Hunt - via Mashable
