ErinIs.com

Please don’t mind the mess while I teach myself some CSS and get this blog up to my an acceptable level of pretty. Any feedback throughout the process is totally welcome! 

A couple of non-advertising things to distract you from the ugly duckling phase of this blog. 

Sometime Around Midnight by The Airborne Toxic Event 

Texts From Last Night

I was told there’d be cake

I’m a self taught digital girl. Besides one tech class in college, digital was not something ever discussed in all of my communication, advertising or journalism classes. And now I’m solo in the digital department, with no one to collaborate with or learn from. 

Which is why I am always on the search for additional classes, conferences or books that can educate me and comfort me in knowing that I’m up to date and in line with best practices and the newest tools. I’ve looked into traditional schools, MBA programs, extension classes, certificate programs, but they’re all not quite what would work for me.  

So when I noticed new display ads for the University of San Francisco’s certifcate in online marketing on MediaBuyerPlanner.com I click on through (see display does work!) to see what’s available. The ads look decent and send me to a legit landing page. 

So I’m stoked, finally a viable option for continuing my digital education. I fill out the little form to request more information, although I’m totally annoyed that they require a phone number. Umm its an online marketing class taught completely online, try email. 

Then I’m sent to a Thank You page with early registration dates of December 2008 for a February 2009 program (its April ’09!). The online marketing school is running expired creative or failed to update their landing page for the new semester? Either way its a total FAIL. 

And then, the 2 emails I recieved within 10 mintues of each other frmo USF went straight to my spam folder. How do you expect me to take you seriously?

Dear USF,

When you’re advertising a online marketing degree program, I recommend hiring people who actually know what they’re doing to set up and execute your digital marketing campaign. I highly doubt you’re school will be able to advance my knowledge if you can’t even get the basics of online adveritisng down. 

Best Regards, 

Erin

A week ago Skittles relaunched their website and it looked strangely familiar…reminiscent of Modernista’s unwebsite, Skittles.com’s site is merely a redirect to social networks, Wikpedia, YouTube and a couple of static pages. 

Initially, the Skittles homepage was pointed at the results page for a ”skittles” twitter search but within a couple of hours there were hundreds of inappropriate tweets making onto the results page. Hilarious for those of us with a juvenile sense of humor, but probably not what Skittles had intended. They have since redirected the homepage to their Wikipedia entry, but those twitter search results are still the redirect for the “chatter” section of the site. 

There was no clear consensus within my Twitter friends if it was genius or a lame attempt to jump on the bandwagon. I can’t understand why would they attempt to feed off of a social network without someone who was actively twittering as the face of the brand? Unless of course Skittles the Cat (@skittles) is the mastermind behind the candy. 

While I applaud the attempt to “go social” and I love the idea of the unwebsite, I really don’t think that it fits with the brand of the product. Once all the attention dies down from the new site, how is the unwebsite going to further the brand, continue to build awareness or make me want some Skittles? Just because the unwebsite is a great idea, doesn’t mean its a great idea for the brand. 

You can read some great posts on the Skittles redesign here, here and here. 

Now if I could have had a hand in this site redo, I would have taken a look around the internets to see what people were already saying about the brand. Check out what I learned about Skittles in 5 minutes. Starting with my first two Google searchs (auto completes say a lot!):

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While watching the inaguration on CNN from the ever so comfy beds at Encore at Wynn in Vegas (plush amazing beds), I was uber disappointed in the graphis department of CNN. Did anyone else notice the Facts being posted on screen? Who wrote them? Why did they even bother to waste screen space with such astounding facts like:

Fact: Legendary soul singer Aretha Franklin is performing “My Country Tis of Thee”
(This was displayed as the Aretha Franklin is on screen singing the song)

They also include now, “now, next, later” graphics with such riveting announcements as
Now: Presidential Inauguration
Next: Vice President Sworn
Later: President

In addition to being incredibly vauge and obvious, they were pretty much just a waste of space on the screen. CNN can make holograms and crazy election maps but they can’t even get make simple graphics relevant.

Ninjas. Pirates. Zombies. The web is full of all three. Are they good or evil? Who knows, but they do provide an incredible amount of entertainment. I definitely think there is potential for some advertisers to jump on the bandwagon and incorporate all three into some sort of crazy web adventure. Which would turn viral in a heartbeat and find itself plastered across all sorts of social media (So any advertisers who’ve stumbled on this with a huge ad budget, you’re welcome!). 

While zombies are obviously enemies to everyone (since they don’t discriminate on the brain eating), pirates and ninjas have a natural hatred of each other. If you need proof of this absolute fact then check out the video below. 

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I love spam emails that feature a South African Lottery, Nigerian Long Lost Uncle, interested ‘buyers’ from across the country and my British cousin who just left me a bunch of money! Occasionally, I’ll respond because I’m intrigued at what they do when someone actually bites. Normally, they’re pretty straight forward in what they’re asking of you (credit card numbers, social security, etc) but I just received this one and I’m totally confused as to what Prisca is asking from me? Is she a mail order bride? 

Greetings from prisca morris,
 
Itis really obvious that this will come to you as a surprise because we have not met before.but I am Prisca Morris by name and i am 32 years of age from South Africa. I am lady with a pure heart and i am also born again Christian.My aim here is to meet a man that will love me and be my loved, then i will do the same thing to him and i will love him with all my heart .
 
I am not here for any game and i am not looking for a player either,so please if you are a player don’t bother to write me back but if you are seriously looking for a serious relationship like i do then lets me know by Writing me to my email and i will write you back with my beautiful picture attach to it so as to know whom you are moving in relationship with .
 
Thank you and i hope to hear from you as soon as possible. I believe we can move from here, & Know that the distance or colour does not matter but the feelings and love we have for each other matters alot in life. I am waiting for your reply to my email.Remember Prisca Morris is my name.Waiting for your email.

God Bless you,

Prisca Morris.