The current ad campaign from brewer Dos Equis features a fictional spokesperson it calls The Most Interesting Man in the World—a dashing chap engaged in a series of action-oriented vignettes that might remind viewers of vintage undercover-themed television shows like It Takes a Thief or I Spy. Filmed with the ... more

In a post at the Deliverability.com blog, Dennis Dayman presents a short series of off-the-cuff emails that his wife wrote in response to his question about video in email marketing campaigns. Dayman wanted to know whether she—a stay-at-home mom—found the concept appealing. In her first email, she explains that the ... more

In a piece at The New Yorker, James Surowiecki recounts how two companies—Post and Kellogg—reacted to the Depression. "Post did the predictable thing: it reined in expenses and cut back on advertising," he writes. "But Kellogg doubled its ad budget, moved aggressively into radio advertising, and heavily pushed its new ... more

Good news for all you budding Spielbergs out there: YouTube this month made it possible to automatically seed freshly uploaded videos across popular social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and even news and feed aggregator Google Reader. This means you no longer have to wait for your (undoubtedly stunning) viral somethin'-or-other ... more

Chad White of the Retail Email blog was impressed when he recently received an email from Lands' End with this subject line: Free Shipping + 20-50% off summer! Swim, shorts, polos and more. "I really liked this checklist approach to listing departments," he explains. "It feels less like it's pressing ... more

It's safe to say the first batch of post-dot-com-bubble brands have come into their own. Brands like Google, eBay, and Amazon. The one thing that sets them apart? They became successful without the support of television advertising to help launch them. more

To make an in-house SEO effort successful, you must first gain buy-in from the three main "layers" in most large organizations: executives, management, and everyone else. So says Duane Forrester in a recent post at Search Engine Land. He likens working with these groups to making a layered sandwich. To ... more

If you're a man, your father probably taught you how to shave your face. It's highly improbable, though, that he included a lesson on shaving the rest of your body. And as "manscaping" starts going mainstream, many might wonder why a man would let his razor wander southward. An animated ... more

In this regular Daily Chirp feature, William Arruda shares some of his favorite television ads. And he offers up a lesson for how the ad relates to your personal brand. Today, he looks at Target's "New Day" commercial. more

Right in time for the much-anticipated iPhone OS 3.0 Software Update debut on June 17, AdMob has introduced a slew of ad units that will help enterprising advertisers make the most of mobile marketing. Among the cool features to check out:  Mobile social networking, which lets users access your ... more

When you first arrive at the Blue Penguin website, it looks much like any other—with a logo, navigation buttons, a subscription link and some written content in the center. But then something happens. A man standing only a few inches high wanders across the screen and addresses the visitor. ... more

In a post at the DIRECT website, Ken Magill discusses the results of a survey conducted by MailerMailer. Among its more interesting findings: Subject lines containing up to 35 characters significantly outperform those with more than 35. "According to the email marketing software-on-demand provider," says Magill, "messages with subject lines ... more

Rodney King famously asked, "Can we all get along?" And in a delightfully low-tech video currently making its way through the blogosphere, Red House Furniture of High Point, North Carolina, says the answer is an emphatic yes. Set to the tinny strains of a Casio keyboard-style soundtrack, the one-and-a-half minute ... more

Once in a while, a digital ad grabs you just like that. And one thing that really boosts its impact is if the person featured in it is—you. Read on:  Last year, to sell tickets to its women's basketball games, Gonzaga University released a video of a coach calling the ONE person whose attendance would ... more

"A subject line … invites others into your email marketing open house," says Josh Nason in an article at MarketingProfs. "If you have something to sell or a message you want to get across, that subject line better be good—or else your prospects might head to a different neighborhood." Nason ... more

We all know that content is king in search engine optimization, but in a recent Search Engine Land post, Daniel Waisberg reminds us that "usability is queen." According to Waisberg, the synergy between content and usability design can be a powerful generator of website conversion rates. To help search marketers optimize ... more

It's a simple fact: We love watching online videos. In a post at the Digital Marketing blog, Eydie Cubarrubia cites Nielsen Online research that found 119 billion unique viewers watched 7 trillion total streams during the month of April. "Total streams were up 24 percent from a year ago," she says, ... more

You understand how email delivery works, but perhaps you have trouble explaining the process to your boss, a client or a colleague. If so, you're in luck. An entertaining post by Matt Vernhout at Email Karma compares the delivery process to an evening at a hot new nightclub—terms most everyone ... more

In this regular Daily Chirp feature, William Arruda shares some of his favorite television ads. And he offers up a lesson for how the ad relates to your personal brand. Today, he looks at one of the Get a Mac ads, a series that began in 2006 and is still ... more

A cool thing is happening through sites like blogging service Xanga, review site Yelp, and Twitter. Some of their faithful users have started attending meet-ups, where folks who interact online and live in the same geographic area can actually meet—in person! What a concept. Now, here's the really good news: These ... more

"The economic downturn spells bad news to most marketers," says Jack Trout in a post at the Branding blog, "but a slump also presents an opportunity to build brands." He takes a back-to-basics approach to his brand-building, and recommends a few down-home strategies that might help turn your lemons into ... more

"There are many similarities between social media marketing and email," says Ross Kramer in an article at MarketingProfs, "but they are two distinct marketing channels and they should be used separately to enhance or magnify, not just promote, each other." Kramer outlines a process for complementary strategies that play to the ... more

We've seen some great creative ads in the past, both online and on television. Now imagine that you could be the brains behind a nationwide ad. Well, Panasonic gives you this opportunity with its Next Generation Talent competition. more

Click Forensics has released statistics for the first quarter of 2009 revealing that 13.8 percent of clicks are a result of fraudulent behavior. Although that figure is down from 17.1 percent in Q4 2008, it's still too high for search marketers' comfort as they watch every penny spent and earned. ... more

As summer approaches, and your subscribers begin to go on holidays, you might wonder whether you should scale back your email campaigns. But in a post at the Email Experience Council blog, Ryan Allis says, "Not only should you feel comfortable sending out your messages over the summer, it's also ... more