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How to Host a Good Party

Corporate art patronage doesn't usually lead to great art, but it does lead to great parties, and it's a good fit for alcoholic beverage Campari. Art patronage can be leveraged in so many different directions. You can send out press releases, send out invitations, get the artist to help with images for the advertising, if they are so inclined. Anheuser-Busch has been doing some great digital artist sponsorship for Flavorpill.

Mediapost Marketing Daily: Campari Unveils Commissions Initiative, Targeting Artists. 2007-Aug-28, by Nina M. Lentini (free registration required): As it continues to target a key demographic for the brand, Campari has expanded its House of Campari contemporary art program--now in its third season--to include a newly announced 2007 Campari Commissions Initiative. The goals of the Campari Commissions are to provide financial support for artists to create significant new works of art and exhibition opportunities for showing the work, and then to donate the artworks to appropriate museum collections.

Experimenting with Milk for Free

We're anxiously awaiting word from the artist currently known as Prince as to his reasoning behind distributing his new album, Planet Earth, for free in the UK. First he decided to give it away with tickets to his London concerts, then it was distributed free in The Sunday Mail, as well. The Sunday Mail publisher is crowing about their position as a leading-edge promoter of fine music, but I think Prince is trying to redesign the connection with his public once again, and Sunday Mail got to hitch on for the ride. So what's he going to do for fans in the rest of the world?? I don't understand what's going on well enough to judge this as a marketing tactic. Maybe it's just an experiment? Billboard.com: U.K. Storm Brewing Over New Prince Album. 2007-Jun-29, by Lars Brandle

Premium Shareware

You have many different ways to support creative talent. Your company could become a distributor of a small but significant piece of software art. Consider it the digital equivalent of mailing a calendar to regular customers.

ClickZ: Shareware Synergies. 2007-May-22, by Chad Stoller

There's a large number of shareware developers, and their exposure opportunities are limited and short in time. They don't buy ads in consumer magazines or have a regional sales force that calls on Fortune 500 customers. Generally, their editorial coverage is limited to a top-tools list or a daily entry on an enthusiast's site. From there, they rely heavily on search, word of mouth, and community participation. They covet the opportunity to expand their marketplace. This is where you come in. Here are some quick tips on how you can partner with a developer: Find an innovative solution. You know your customers. Check out the thousands of consumer programs available for free on the Web, and find something that will appeal to your audience.

Lexus as Art

To attract the right audience for the new Lexus LS, they have developed a touring art gallery of contemporary art, so advanced that it attracts a select targeted audience, only 4,500 in Los Angeles. They invite a few co-sponsors to help with expenses and round out the experiences, but overall the feeling conveyed is "Lexus is art." This strategy will play well with influencers even if they aren't actual Lexus customers.

Mediapost: Lexus Marries Art With Design At City Events, 2006-Nov-3, by Karl Greenberg

A new Web site at www.460degrees.com serves as an online kiosk to the shows. The galleries are being curated by New York-based Sebastien Agneessens, whose agency Formavision has also created such events as the Starbucks Salon and Diesel Denim gallery.

Marketing as the Lungs of your Business

This on-line newsletter is about all the chances you have to establish a communication system with your customers, prospects, vendors, investors or other audiences. Good marketing communications is like breathing. With every message you send out, you have an opportunity to collect some information back in. If you build the right respiratory system, over time you will become closer to your audience and better able to keep them happy.

Refreshed with New Focus

This web site has been on hiatus while we finished remodelling the home office and completed a long-awaited family trip to New York. Today we jump back in with a new focus on "news you can use," with less about broadcast and big-ticket advertising and more about search and online marketing.

You can expect to see a bunch of back-upped postings "pop" in the next few days as I share things I saved but didn't post. I'm going to leave the original dates on them, giving outsiders the illusion we didn't take time off. Skim them to see if there's something valuable to you.

And here's what we were doing...wandering around and trying to get out bearings.

Bloggers are Responsible to Sources

Wal-Mart continues to struggle with two-way marketing, but I don't think they did anything wrong in sending out "exclusives" to bloggers, some of whom lifted sections and published them as if they were the blogger's own words. Anyone who publishes, including anyone who self-publishes, needs to be forthright about who wrote the words they are using and, if possible, where the information originated. It's okay to say "my source prefers to remain anonymous," but it's not okay to pretend there was no source, that the words and ideas are all your own. I'm very careful to credit sources, and if I slip would like to be corrected right away.

NY Times, March 7, 2006: 
Wal-Mart Enlists Bloggers in P.R. Campaign by Michael Barbaro

Wal-Mart, the nation's largest private employer, has been forthright with bloggers about the origins of its communications, and the company and its public relations firm, Edelman, say they do not compensate the bloggers.

But some bloggers have posted information from Wal-Mart, at times word for word, without revealing where it came from.

Glenn Reynolds, the founder of Instapundit.com, one of the oldest blogs on the Web, said that even in the blogosphere, which is renowned for its lack of rules, a basic tenet applies: "If I reprint something, I say where it came from. A blog is about your voice, it seems to me, not somebody else's."

Unlike Glenn Reynolds, I look at my web site as a source of news more than a source of opinion, but I think he's right. If we publish, we have to credit our sources, even if we say we have a source who wants to be anonymous.

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December Newsletter Shoved from Nest

My desk and my mind become cluttered with all the ideas and information I collect from reading and talking to my friends. Once a month I have to sort everything out, sweeping many items into the trash, and trying to figure out what everything else means.

The final step is pushing out the monthly email version of this newsletter. I hope you see some happy changes, maybe something you've suggested to me. First, I'd like to address the comments about my photos. I like to look as if I have a thought in my head, and smiling seems to be at odds with thinking, at least for now. Perhaps I'll soon think of something funny while a camera is around, but don't hold your breath.

Next, I'm trying to keep the articles short. I've added a table of contents on the left. I'm learning HTML so I can keep the production as lean and clean as possible. Please continue to let me know where I can improve. Thanks for being a part of my community.