Man, I Miss My Dogz: Family Guy Style

I stopped watching Family Guy about halfway through the new season last year. It was a shame, as I was one of those people who really wanted to see it come back, but when it did, it resembled the South Park parody more than anything else.

The stories were gone, and so was my interest.

Of course, Franki and I still have a love for Stewie. I had no idea he had a rapping career. It's really well done, Caution - This video has adult language that is NSFW.

HUE HD Webcam: Look Ma, I'm On The Interweb!

Franki always teases me that I'd prefer fame to fortune. It's not true, but if the fates want to smile on me, who am I to complain?

Well, no more waiting for those television spots - I have a webcam. A sexy green webcam. Here's a picture of one in blue. How did I get such a prize? Blogging.

One of our clients, the ultra fabulous and talented Sue Wetzel of The Winning Pitch is a PR guru who works with Clique Cams, the manufacture of the Hue HD Webcam. Working through her social media contacts, Sue places the products with bloggers that use the product and write about it.

If you like the Hue Webcam, you can buy one at the CliqueMart.

The webcam was easy to set up - simply pop in the cd, download a driver, and plug into your computer. It works with both PC's and Macs, and is portable as well - plugging into a spare USB port.

Some Product Info:

HUE™ is unique, colorful and is the highest quality webcam available today. HUE™ enables live video conferences and video chat, allows you to record and send video instant messages and enables all forms of video communications. It works with a variety of video messaging or security webcam software.

In my case, in addition to pitching it here on Brandstorming, I've arranged to give one away through another client, Flektor.com, as a giveaway to help promote the use of the Flektor video and photo editing software.

The contest will be launching today at the Flektor Blog, so come on over and win yourself a webcam. So to summarize. Clique works with the Winning Pitch who works with Durbin Media who works with Flektor, and because we're bloggers, we all work together to help promote the use of all our products and services. Welcome to the Web 2.0.

Book To Review: The Art Of Digital Branding

Franki and I are blog consultants in St Louis. Hmmm, that's too narrow. We're interactive marketing consultants. That's too broad, and it always means that we have to explain more what we do.

I know. We're social media consultants. Sounds interesting, describes what we do, and looks good in the search engines. And it has an easy follow-up. We help people look and sound good online. It's not grammatically correct, but it makes sense to most people.

So the question is why people need to improve their online profile. And why would they turn to us? You turn to us because we're awesome we have a track record of success and a portfolio of beautiful pieces, plus we're fun to work with, but the question of why this is important is a bigger topic than a blog post.

Luckily there's a book that address the importance of looking good online digital branding. At least one author calls it The Art Of Digital Branding. Ian Cocoran, is a branding consultant that writes for brandchannel.com, and his publisher forwarded me a copy of his book for review.

It looks great (a good sign for a branding book), but I've only skimmed it. The book describes simple steps you can take to improve your online brand, and covers some companies that get it very, very wrong. I'll get to it this week and post my thoughts.

Oceano Bistro Is Quite The Fish Story

Franki and I like to travel. A lot. We also love to eat seafood when we travel. A lot. Maybe that's because we're in the Midwest, where fish isn't exactly native to the local palate, but there;s something to eating on the coasts, in view of the ocean, that makes fish and sushi taste better.

That isn't speculation. We live in St Louis, and when we return from someplace like Vancouver or San Diego, we inevitably head out to get some salmon or tuna or sashimi from a local joint, and are always disappointed.

Yes - even at Bristol's. And regular readers know that we had a sweet spot for Aqua Vin until they changed their menu and went from sweet spot to sour note.

But now, now we have a favorite. There is a place in St Louis that you can eat fish without fear. Where you can order salmon and calamari (pan seared, not fried) and clam chowder, and sea bass, and anything your little saltwater creature loving heart could desire.

Welcome to St Louis, Oceano Bistro. First off - the place looks great. It's situated where the old Tejas restaurant was, which was previously Jalapeno's in Clayton on the corner of Maryland and Brentwood (it's across the street from Cardwell's). The restaurant has been totally revamped (you wouldn't recognize it), and if you choose, you can sit next to giant bay windows that swing open and let you it outside, while still inside.

The food is fantastic. With each dish, our expectations rose, from teh crab cakes and the calamari to the excellent salad and the clam chowder, to the sea bass and salmon. The food was awesome, the service, by our waiter Tony B, was impeccable, and we can't stop recommending it to our friends and family.

Yes, yes - this post sounds like a fake Amazon review, but that's because we're amazed, and shocked to find fish in St Louis that is fresh (flown in every 24 hours) and prepared with a delicate touch. And our bill was less than $70.

We've found a fish place in St Louis. Thank you Oceano Bistro. Now don't screw it up!

Cadillac's New Stars Commercial

It's titled Turn You On, and it has Kate Walsh in strappy heels accelerating in her new 2008 Cadillac STS. But that's not the cool part. The commercial ends with the intro to Stars, a song from the band Hum, which was popular at the University of Illinois - Champaign back in the mid-90's.

Not the song you would expect in a Cadillac commercial, as it's about a not quite with it girl who missed the train to Mars, she's out back counting stars. Still, the commercial is cool, and a bit nostalgic, and if you haven't heard the song before, it fits the commercial well.

I guess it's a better commercial than I Hate It Too, which would fit more into a car wreck commercial.

"morning gray ignites a twisted mess of foreign shapes and sounds
i wish the ceiling was the ground"

"if we break off gently in slow motion, spinning outward into space
my hand always floating gently at the wheel while you sweetly hold my face"

Yeah - that wouldn't work. Neither would the tagline.

...and she don't hold me right, she's never going to get me there...
not tonight.

Sounds more like a Jaguar commercial, with the whole not getting there theme, presumably because your Jag is getting worked on (pre-Ford of course).

AdSaint Plug: And We're Not Talking About Walt's Hair!

Kristen (who by the way has joined Durbin Media in our social media marketing world) and I (Jim) shot over to the Kirkwood Kaldi's last week to chat with Walt and Maeve, the dynamic duo from local marketing and advertising blog, AdSaint.

Walt is a professional copywriter, the kind of wordsmith who creates memorable copy for national brands, not the kind that writes up marketing speak for the local website (it's a hierarchy thing). You can find him, and his work, and his contact info over at WaltNow.

Recently, Walt added Maeve as an intern and principal contributor for AdSaint. Maeve is a Webster University Student, and we congratulated her on gaining experience that will help her get employed in the fast-paced world of social media upon graduation.

What's the plan for AdSaint? Domination. As the sole local marketing and advertising blog in St Louis, AdSaint has taken it upon themselves the duty of listing all the agencies in town, and also providing a steady update of events, jobs, and announcements for metro region.

As Walt put it - there are many different groups in St Louis, all working separately on the same purpose. His goal is to bring them all together, One Ring Style, and bind them into an unstoppable force. Also - he wants you to advertise there.

As I told him - it's a smart thing to do. Everyone likes Lord of the Rings, and if he grew his beard longer and added a white robe, he might pass as a wizard. Keep these guys on your target list, and if you are in marketing, advertising, interactive, digital or social media, think about ways to pitch your message to the St Louis community. AdSaint will be there to publish it.

Plum Crazy For American Express

I don't need one. I have absolutely no need for one. Their terms and conditions, while generous, aren't something that has any real value to my company. My lines of credit are sufficient for our needs, and I get better rates from my bank than any credit card.

It's a silly color. I much prefer the AMEX Blue in my wallet, which although it looks fake, it at least is pleasing to the eye.

I mean, who ever heard of a Plum credit card? Gold, Silver, Platinum - these make sense. Precious metals mean wealth.

But A Fruit? And a plum of all things? Is the plum more serious than a cherry, or less likely to be made fun of than a kumquat?

So why, oh why, do I want one so bad?

E-mail Interview with Chad Feuer of Killer Tracks

I'm a big fan of consumer generated media, and think that with new tools that abound on the internet, small businesses are going to generate a lot of traffic building high quality videos and mash-ups. The question, especially for businesses, is what to do when you need popular music or video? The internet is a pretty permissive place, but when you're running a business, you can't afford to make mistakes with copyright law.

But where do you buy the music? Here's a place. It's called Killer Tracks, and they license music for use online and in radio and television commercials. My interview is with Chad Feuer, who can help you get set up for remarkably reasonable prices.

The interview:

1) What do you do, and how long has Killer Tracks been around? Where are you located?

Killer Tracks, which is located in Beverly Hills, is a production music company that was founded in 1989. We started out with a catalogue of 30 production music CDs and now license music from over 2000 CDs for over 35,000 unique tracks.

2) When exactly do I need a license?

In regards to production, you need a license anytime you’re using a piece of music that you didn’t compose or write. All music is considered “Intellectual Property” and as such is owned by the copyright holder, ie: composer or the music publisher to which the representation has been assigned.

3) What kind of companies are use your services, and for what kind of purposes?

All different kinds of people license our music: Fortune 500 companies, sports teams, movie and television studios, production houses and local editors. They’ll use the music for their commercials, corporate videos, websites, movies on DVD that are being sold, film festivals….pretty much anything under the sun.

4) How does licensing work? Is it per song, per play, or per production?

Licensing works differently for different companies. For Killer Tracks, you may license on a “per use” basis or annually. For the “per use” basis, you pay a needledrop fee each time the music is used in the production. Imagine a record player: you place the needle on the record, let it go for 10 seconds and then lift it. That’s a needledrop, whether you let the record play for 10 seconds or 2 minutes. For our annual agreements you pay a yearly fee and are given unlimited use of a selection of CDs from our library. Needledrop fees don’t apply in this case.

5) Do I sign up as an individual or as a company? Can we put this on the corporate credit card?

Any one who is interested in licensing music from Killer Tracks may do so as long as they expect to have at least 12 uses of music per year. If they don’t, it’s best to contact us as the need for music arises. Placing license fees on a credit card is always accepted.

6) Do you license all of the world’s music, or just certain artists? Is it popular tracks, or is it more orchestral and movie tracks.

We license tracks for music only in our library, which contains every genre you can think off. If you’re looking to license a track that’s not within our library you would need to contact either the artist who wrote it or the publishing company who now licenses it.

7) Anything you want marketers to know? Any special promotions?

If you mention that you heard about Killer Tracks from http://www.brandstorming.com, I’ll cut 10% off the needledrop rate when licensing.

Art Seen Through A Purple Haze

Jimi Hendrix was one of a kind, and this You Tube fan decided to showcase his artistic rendition of Jimi doing what he did best, setting the rock and roll world on fire.