I must admit I love the Skullcandy story, but I think the story you shared about inventing the strapless snowboard binding is better! Pumping your college money into the promos that ended up causing the worn fingers that were the genesis of your binding invention is classic entrepreneurship! It’s such a good story I’m sharing it below.

Your passion for creating products that are useful and cool at the same time make them winners.

Rick Alden, the founder and CEO of Skullcandy, shares his entrepreneurial starts when he launched the Snowboarding Jam Event Series back when he knew everyone with a snowboard on a first name basis. While having to replace defective binding straps, Alden had the inspiration to invent a “strapless” snowboard binding. Alden shows off his first prototypes and tells about his first ride without straps. Later he sold the company to Ride Snowboards for 50 percent cash and 50 percent stock.

This presentation is a keynote from the 2007 Young Entrepreneur Summit in Salt Lake City where Alden shared his passion for starting and building businesses. Also watch a second recording where Alden talks about the genesis and brand creation at his latest company, Skullcandy.

Other interviews with Rick Alden are available on RockyMountainVoices.

Wow. Does anyone else find this a bit weird? Apparently the marketing executives at American Express have missed the Seth Godin classic, “Permission Marketing”.

I remember the time when online advertising was considered a last resort for a company to make money off a web page. Now it looks like that if there’s a web page that someone will view, and the company can make money from the presentation of pages, it’s acceptable to pocket the money.

Perhaps it was a “budget” meeting where someone said, “Hey, I know how we can make an expense into a revenue model: get people to convert from paper billing and serve up online ads where we can make money.”

Tacky.

Now that the election is complete, I couldn’t help but think about the number of impressions I have seen and heard over the past two years. To be honest, it’s been overwhelming.

One thing for certain, all Americans, including eligible voters over the age of 18, have witnessed the most “expensive marketing campaign” for a public office. Mr. Obama and McCain have raised a marketing war war chest of approximately US$999M (source: www.OpenSecrets.org).

What does this mean from a budgeting perspective?

Using US Census data (July 2007 estimates), there are approximately 306M citizens in the US. Assuming the dollars will split equally, President Elect Obama had $2.18 for every man, woman, and child to create impressions. McCain trailed with $1.18 per US citizen, or only 56% of what Obama raised.

Reality is that the vote is only available for those 18 years and older. Focusing the war chest on the narrower target audience, Obama had $2.81 per man and woman. Mr. McCain again only had a little over half as much money to spend at $1.58.

What’s interesting is that as a category spend of dollars per eligible voter, each of us over the age of 18 has received approximately $4.39 of awareness or issue-education spend.

Question: Should any election should have unlimited marketing spend to get the word out, share the message, or influence the vote?

What are your thoughts? I’d love to know.

So The Sun and torrentfreak.com are reporting that a few new tracks from U2′s forthcoming and likely titled ” No Line On The Horizon” release have been “leaked” to the Internet. Supposedly, an “innocent passer by” recognized Bono’s voice and then recorded (not sure with what), uploaded, and published the tracks to the Internet.

I don’t buy it. This is a publicity stunt designed to create buzz.

U2 and Bono are so connected to the use of buzz marketing, social media, and social networking for me to believe this story. In fact, back in November, Bono hooked up with iLike to “preview” a release of the bonus material that would be included on the re-released Joshua Tree.

About 8 years ago, I worked with a tech guy who really wanted to be a musician — in fact, he played as a backup guitarist for Rage Against the Machine on a couple of recordings. When we went to lunch and debated about the use of Napster and P2P file sharing networks, he proposed a simple solution: upload crappy recordings labeled as the real thing. Give listeners a chance to gain exposure to the artist, recordings, musical style, sounds, etc. When the listener found music he/she liked, he/she could leverage legal download services or old-fashioned CD sales to get the quality recording.

Humm….sounds family.

Tom Foremski is a smart guy with keen insight into the happenings of Silicon Valley. I interacted with him on a few occasions through PodTech.net and at the Bloghaus at CES. Foremski’s post today is targeted at marketing professionals.

The Question:
“Think about two equally educated candidates with similar experience but one candidate doesn’t have the same social or professional footprint in the mediasphere as the other. Which one gets the job?”

Marketing technology is requiring a new training ground. Classical marketing principles can be leveraged, but the instantaneous feedback and interaction available today is game changing. And while good marketing people have always listened to the prospect or customer, today marketing pros must listen, listen, listen to the “networks.”

Good stuff Tom.

Brand is more than a logo. And the new web application BrandTags.net shows this. Brand is what’s in someone’s head based on their interaction with the company / product. It can be generic, specific, good, or bad. Marketers influence this through advertising, packaging, voice greetings, logo, color, athletes, price, and more. What people ultimately associate, catalog, and share with others is ultimately the “brand.”

Today’s social tools are showing marketers what they’ve only collected on the street and through focus groups. Today information comes at you faster, is more honest, and includes huge sample sizes from a cross-section of people around the world.

For some, the result is positive (Apple, Mercedes-Benz, Harley-Davidson). For others, I’m sure that CEOs, CMOs, Brand Managers, and board members are gritting their teeth (WalMart).

Give it a try. Enter your thoughts on a brand, and feed the collective intelligence brand meter.

John Adams, the CEO of The Martin Agency, was a recent interview. The Martin Agency became the first advertising agency to be named “Agency of the Year” five times by Adweek magazine. Adams brings 30 years of experience to the table when he talks about marketing. He’s worked to create some amazingly memorable campaigns, mascots, marks, and more. A recent success is his work with GEICO and their gecko and caveman campaigns.

An insight from this podcast that hit me as a very unorthodox and perhaps breakthrough was Adam’s recognition and support for deeper layers and multiple messages. This is one trend that makes a lot of sense for new media and marketing to the digital-raised, multi-tasking, short-attention span Millennials. Check out the quote below, and be sure to listen to the full podcast for additional insight.

Consumers themselves in many ways account for the recent explosion of multiple advertising messages across both old and new media. Adams believes today’s consumers have advanced beyond classical marketing tenets. “The capacity of people to hold multiple ideas about the same brand in their minds at the same time has absolutely evolved,” says The Martin Agency topper. “We are finding out with GEICO and with other brands that it is not only possible but highly desirable to tell multiple stories and have multiple promises for a brand, which is contrary to the way we were all taught.” Placing a specific brand message with the audience most likely to embrace it is the other portion of the equation. The GEICO campaign, with its multiple messages delivered nearly simultaneously, offers a perfect case study. “The one thing that unifies them is the overarching brand promise: ‘A 15-minute call could save you 15 percent or more on your car insurance.’ But the way in which each of those campaigns is done is completely different, and 30 years ago that would have been heresy.”

- From Episode: John Adams downloads on four decades with The Martin Agency

I joined Robert Merrill, Thom Allen, and Michael Reinbold to talk about the forming of Rocky Mountain Voices, social media, and the future of marketing via social mediums. I even go out on a limb and talk about how marketing agencies will rise to the occasion and excel at social media.

Thanks for including me on the CouchCast.

Nielson Online research showed “73% of active Web users watched online video in December.”

Other findings:

• Women twice as likely to watch network television programming online (example: watch ABC over YouTube)
• Men 18-34 are twice as likely to watch user-generated content
• Watchers of one network online tend to be loyal to that network (hum, I wonder if this has anything to do with the quality of programming offered by technology by companies like Utah-based Move Networks)

Article likely requires a subscription and can be found at http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120293498930866159.html.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) has always been the place where companies announced and demonstrated the newest gadgets and electronic devices. Phil and Scott are joined by three attendees, Brad Baldwin, Scott Barlow, and Randall Bennett, to discuss some of the products.

They talk about Vuzix, a company that demonstrated new visual devices for gaming. They also review how robotics continue to become more sophisticated. They also assess how power consumption continues to be an issue that needs to be considered as newer devices are developed.