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This is the personal blog of John F. Morton. It's where I talk about the stuff that interests me. Primarily technology, marketing and pop culture. If you are looking for my portfolio of work, visit johnfmorton.com. Thanks for stopping by!

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Parody Ads Tell You A Lot About Your Brand

Last year Tom Ford released a fragrance for men that has received less than stellar reviews. A friend showed me the parody of the site. If you want to see them both, do so at your own risk. They are not what I’d call “safe for work”. Click here for the original site. Click here for the parody. I can see why someone did a parody of those Tom Ford ads. They are pretentious and stupid. I think the parody serves as fair warning for any brand with such crappy advertising.

But what happens when a brand listens to their customer and gives them what they want? I’ve got a couple example to share that show what happens when consumers really love a brand/product and take the marketing materials and make it their own. Yes, it’s an Apple example, a brand that almost seems unfair to compare any other to, but it’s worth the comparison if only to show how high the bar is set.

Witness “Hit Me With Your iPhone,” a song composed by a fan and with video remixed from a marketing video on Apple’s site:

Next, take that same video, remix it with a feature suggestion for an improvement to the iPhone. That ”I love you” at the end speaks volumes as to how this brand reaches people.

iPhone Copy and Paste

P.S. iPhone, I love you too.

How to make a video go “viral.”

A friend who is a director recently asked me about how to get his viral video he’s made “seen” by people. That’s sort of the $6 million question, right? I don’t have the answer unfortunately, but I’ve got some clues, thanks to 6 really good blog posts. Here they are.

Seven Deadly Sins of Advertising Via Viral Video
More Viral Video Lessons: An Interview with the My-Box-In-A-Box Geniuses
The Rules Of Viral Web Success, according to AdWeek.
And the rebuttal, The Rules Of Viral Web Success (My Foot)
6 Things Not To Do With Your Viral Video
I also like the LEGS rule from this post on the Video Insider blog: Viral Videos Ads: No Marketing Panacea

Here’s an excerpt from Viral Videos Ads: No Marketing Panacea:

[Viral] ads need LEGS, a convenient acronym that means viral ads have to have a Laugh out loud quality, Edgy content, must Grip your attention and most often have some Sexual content. Given that few campaigns (viral or otherwise) have LEGS, few will be able to create a successful viral campaign as Dove did with Evolution, and in most cases the reach is low. It comes back to the bottom line — a question of opportunity, cost, and return on investment.

Lastly,The Secret Strategies Behind Many “Viral” Videos has some interesting pointers in it.

There's more to read. Click here for the rest. >>

Making Your Own Kindle Book Files

It’s hard for me to believe I’ve missed an entire month on my blog. December is usually a very busy month with my juggling 3 jobs, traveling to see my family and the usual seasonal holiday parties. I’ve also been giving my new Kindle from Amazon a thorough workout all month long as well. The abbreviated review is that I’m enjoying it immensely. It’s not perfect, but it’s got so many things right that I feel comfortable recommending it to anyone who loves reading.

There have been many good reviews of the device. Here are a couple I found really fair to the device: Steve Gibson’s review, ArsTechnica and Gizmodo. (In case you’re wondering, that is the same Steve Gibson from the wonderful podcast Security Now.) There’s not much more I’d add in terms of a review so check those out if you’re still on the fence about getting one.

First, some hidden features of your Kindle.

There are quite a few things your Kindle can do that aren’t so obvious. The most useful is the clock. Sure, it’s just a clock, but pressing ALT-T while you’re reading a good book will briefly display the current time in the lower left hand corner of your Kindle’s display. Since it’s a reading device, it writes out the time as in Eight till six instead of 5:53pm.

The Kindle most definitely is not a game machine, but that hasn’t prevented Minesweeper from finding it’s way. Just press ALT-SHIFT-M when you are on the Home screen. It doesn’t seem to work when you’re actually reading a book.

There's more to read. Click here for the rest. >>