It's Wednesday, so it's time for the Wednesday Minute - the weekly audio tip for marketers. This week I am going to tell you about Branding and Examples of How We Can Brand Canada.

On the heels of Canada Day, the attached video reached my desk and is the fun creation of two local artists Julia Bentley and Andrew Gunadie. In less than two days they met, created, shot and posted this fun video on You Tube. They are looking for our support and have asked that we forward their video to our family and friends. It is so cute I could not resist. It also reminded me of an article I read in the National Post on Canada Day about our branding and lack their of. I happened to be in Ottawa that day for the launch of the how riceworks better event and I was surprised by how the thousands of Canadians that showed up on Parliament Hill in their red and white were not lacking in their comprehension of our Canadian branding.

I also want to point out in this week's Wednesday Minute another wonderful Canadian brand that of Icewine from The Ice House Winery. I marvel at how visitors come to Canada demanding our Maple Syrup and I wonder why Canada has failed to monetize our Icewine Industry. Did you know it takes 7 times more grapes to make icewine and that we are the only country in the world that can consistently make it. In fact, the Icehouse Winery is the only winery in Canada to be selected and win the Monde Selection Gold.

To help them on the map to success and being part of Canada's brand identity we created an Icewine slushy food pairing with Salsa Fresca riceworks, wrote a press release and there you go within 24 hours we had 23,900+ impressions and 354 reads telling people about our great idea.

I have included the release in this audio note and I want to remind you that The Ice House Winery has set up a special tour for visitors on July 28th in the afternoon between 4-6 PM. For those of you looking to get to know Canada better and what our brand stands for we looking forward to seeing you at the Ice House Winery. In fact you can stop by any day. We are just having a special event on that particular day to toast Canada with Ice wine and riceworks gourmet brown rice crisps - both uniquely Canadian treats.

Enjoy the video and the press release I am always amazed at how the Internet works.

The Northern Icewine Slushies and riceworks Gourmet Brown Rice Crisp Press Release

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It's Wednesday, so it's time for the Wednesday Minute - the weekly audio tip for marketers. This week I am going to tell you about It's about a social media success story for the brand Old Spice and The Shulton Company, the original producer of Old Spice.

The first Old Spice product was a fragrance called Early American Old Spice for women, introduced in 1937. Old Spice for men followed in 1938. The early men's products were dominated by shaving soap and aftershave lotion, marketed with a nautical theme.

Procter & Gamble purchased Old Spice from the Shulton Company in June, 1990. The clipper ship was replaced by the yacht logo in February, 1992. In the late 2000s, Old Spice was well known in the USA for their jingle, a catchy whistle used in just about every Old Spice commercial. However, Old Spice had an up and down sales history until just recently.

P& G hired TV pitchman Isaiah Mustafa, a former NFL player and restaurateur to be the hot new Old Spice Guy. I have included the video of his TV spots. Well, the creative took off and on July 14th, 2010 Old Spice set up Isaiah in a bathroom with a video camera and had him reply to hundreds of comments and questions that were pouring in via Twitter, Facebook, Reddit and other social network platforms. Within 24 hours there were 181 video replies which had received a total of 6,703,414 views, propelling the Old Spice YouTube channel up to the most viewed channel of the day.

What I like about this case study is it demonstrates re-positioning of a brand and then how to use an integrated media campaign to reach your target audience in a meaningful and humourous way.

Old Spice YouTube Channel

Read The Article About Isaiah Mustafa

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It's Wednesday, so it's time for the Wednesday Minute - the weekly audio tip for marketers. This week I am going to tell you about an online resource tool that I use to help me understand different aspects of how the Internet works. It is called SPNVideos and there are 40 video channels dedicated to topics of interest to webmasters.

To get started I selected a video on Google analytics with Patrick Schwerdtfeger on understanding Google Analytics I found it very inciteful and you can also order his book webify for free if you find the video engaging and of help.

Understanding Google Analytics Video at SPN Videos.

There are over 1700 videos on the SPNVideo site and you too can add your own if you feel you have a topic people might like to learn about. Check it out.

SPN Videos

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It's Wednesday, so it's time for the Wednesday Minute - the weekly audio tip for marketers. This week I am going to tell you about Social Media Success Stories.

The attached article summarizes 10 and one half great social media success stories. Key learning from the article are:

• There's no right way or wrong way to engage
• Everything comes down to listening
• If you don't follow through, forget it

Read The Article

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It's Wednesday, so it's time for the Wednesday Minute - the weekly audio tip for marketers. This week I am going to tell you about Supermarket Guru Phil Lempert and his new product evaluation process. I follow Phil for new product ideas and for his team's impression on new product entries on a weekly basis. I have to admit I am sometimes sceptical about his suggestions but have found his approach based upon a score of 100 to be interesting. The reviews open my mind to new products and what works and what doesn't. I thought you might enjoy signing up to see what the next new product or trend might be in your market.

Watch The Video

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It's Wednesday, so it's time for the Wednesday Minute - the weekly audio tip for marketers. This week I am going to tell you about Campbell's Soup Repositioning Exercise.
For many of us that have grown up on Campbell's Soup it is hard to believe that this market leader would have to take drastic measure to re-vamp their product line. But like many established brands with significant market share you can be vulnerable to market trends like lower sodium and all natural or competitors like Progresso in the US or new in Canada from the UK Baxter's Soups. The attached article gives a brief overview of how Campbell's tackled this herculean task and the net outcome. I enjoyed the perspective but also found it helped me take some different thinking to how I might approach some of the brand initiatives I have been working on.

Read the Article

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It's Wednesday, so it's time for the Wednesday Minute - the weekly audio tip for marketers. This week I am going to tell you about The Value of Testimonials in Marketing and some tips to get you thinking about how you can improve the one's you might be using on your website. A quick review of some the tips, showed me that it is a lot more complicated and important than I had initially thought.

Enjoy the article I know I did.

This week's food for thought is here:

It's Wednesday, so it's time for the Wednesday Minute - the weekly audio tip for marketers. This week I am going to tell you about Google Alerts.

Google offers a free service called "Google Alerts" that marketing professionals can use to monitor the presence of their company online. The services emails you when new web pages are published that are relevant to the search you enter for the alert. It will not catch every single new web page, but it does catch a lot of them, especially the ones from better known websites. For a huge company with a global brand, this service might not work well, since there is probably a lot of content created using your company or brand name. But for a smaller company with fewer mentions or coverage, it works great.

The attached article tells you how to set up your Google Alert account as well as some tips and tricks in monetizing your online presence.

Enjoy the article I know I did.

Learn More About Google Alerts

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It's Wednesday, so it's time for the Wednesday Minute - the weekly audio tip for marketers. This week I am going to tell you about a Winning Video Submitted in a School Competition. AARP created this contest to see what people 18-30 thought about being 50. This video was created by a Georgia State University student Jonathan Reed, and it came second in the competition but to date has had over 11 million views. It is simple but very impactful and gives hope to all us that are 50 and have had some second thoughts about Generation Y.

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It's Wednesday, so it's time for the Wednesday Minute - the weekly audio tip for marketers. This week I am going to tell you about Small Business Case Studies and the use of Generating Customers with Social Media Marketing. As many of you may know Hubspot is a great online resource and I often use their free tool called hubspot grader to evaluate a website. They also do lots of online webinars for free. This week I signed up for a workshop and they provided me with this great report on small business and social media success. Some of the key chapters cover how blogs can drive small business leads, or how social media support can offline marketing activities. There is a lot of great content along with case studies. Enjoy the article I know I did.

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Read The Article