Eco-Friendly Digital Marketing Internship

“Imagine the whole world at your fingertips – at speeds faster than you ever thought possible.”

This is what Derek Mehraban, CEO of Ingenex Digital Marketing, will be speaking about at Ignite Ann Arbor on Thursday, March 4th.  His topic of discussion will be A2Fiber and it’s implications for the city of Ann Arbor.

On February 10th, Google announced that it plans to build and test ultra-high speed broadband networks in a small number of communities across the country. These lines will stream data at 1 gigabit per second, about 100 times faster than most Americans get through their current cable and DSL providers. A2Fiber is the city of Ann Arbor’s movement to become one of these communities chosen by Google.

Mehraban will have 5 minutes to present his topic in 20 slides, which is the format of the Ignite Ann Arbor program. As CEO of a digital marketing firm that specializes in search engine optimization, web design, and social media marketing, he will have a plethora of experience and knowledge to give to the audience on how a Google Fiber-Optic network in Ann Arbor would improve the community. Not only would an ultra-high speed broadband network improve the lives of residents of Ann Arbor, but it would also encourage new businesses and entrepreneurs to come to Ann Arbor.

A2Fiber, the city of Ann Arbor, and its supporters are calling for the entire Ann Arbor community to jump on the wagon. Become a fan of A2Fiber on Facebook, follow the discussion on Twitter, and fill out a Google form imploring Google to choose Ann Arbor. You can also check out the A2Fiber Youtube channel.

Ingenex Digital Marketing is also a community supporter of the A2Fiber movement.

As the main focus of my eco-friendly internship I am assisting with and updating the  social media accounts for United Way of Washtenaw County.  As an intern with Ingenex, I am currently focusing on the Twitter and facebook accounts for this excellent cause.  United Way, as a whole, has roots dating back to 1887 and has been assisting with community needs by helping to cope with challenges throughout the Great Depression and World War II.  The organization has had several different names over the years, but has maintained the goal of building communities and motivating people to help others.

United Way of Washtenaw County began around 1920 when the Arbor United Charitable and Community Service was organized.  For over 89 years UWWC has worked to improve community standards collectively by directly impacting critical issues.  UWWC partners strategically with local non-profits that provide human and health-care services in order to actively assist with high-priority issues in the community.  UWWC re-evaluates each of its partner non-profits with each years campaign to ensure that they are on topic, financially stable, and reporting benefits to the Washtenaw community through their efforts.  To see this years community partners for United Way Washtenaw visit their website.

Each Year United Way launches an active campaign around Labor Day, incorporating local employers and over 1,000 volunteers, which runs through the end of December and .  United way accepts donations year-round, but the largest concentration of promotional efforts to improve the lives of everyone in the community is during these annual campaigns .  This years campaign for UWWC focuses on on improving five critical issues for Washtenaw County:  shelter and housing, health-care, early childhood care and education, alleviating hunger and aging in place.  The campaign slogan is Give, Advocate, Volunteer.  Live United.

If you are interested in volunteering, donating, or just learning more about what United Way Washtenaw does visit them on Twitter, facebook, and their website!  Live United!

We’ve all been pestered by flies. Annoying critters.

I’m sure some of us, amusingly, have thought about tying a string to them and carrying them around as pets.

However, a Germon book company, Eichborn, dediced to think beyond flies merely as annoyances or pets. They looked at them as advertising media.

“Eichborn’s “smallest commercial gimmick in the world” was simple: attach physical banner ads to actual flies.” You’re kidding? See for yourself @Mashable

I’m no environmentalist, but consider a thought process I developed the other day while reading for my advertising class.  I was studying for ADV475  “Advertising and Society,” when I discovered an interesting point in my text.  The section I was reading dealt with the history of the advertising industry and was discussing the emergence of branding.

What struck me as interesting is that it wasn’t until the late 20th century that manufacturers began to put brand names on various consumer products like soap, oats, and etc..  This opened up huge opportunities because it allowed advertisers to build brand awareness, loyalty, and eventually equity.  This opportunity to put brand names anywhere and everywhere is witnessed tenfold in today’s society.  I started to wonder then: what if brands were never put on product packaging?  It almost seems today that brands and manufacturers use as much packaging as possible just so they can have excess material with their name on it.  Why can’t companies only put their brand name on in-store displays?  In the very least, brands should use the minimal amount of packaging and only put their name on it once.  If someone really cares about which kind of soap they use, then they will most likely consider this at the time of purchase.  The only thing that should really matter to brands then is that their potential consumers know exactly which brand they are selecting at the time of purchase:  in the store!

Since this internship focuses on being eco-friendly, I thought this concept was relevant.  This leads me to my next point:  the development of our consumerist society and branding mentality has gotten so out of control that is pretty much the norm to buy bottled water.  What should be a commodity, water that actually already comes from a tap pretty clean, is branded and marketed under hundreds if not thousands of different brand names.  If you were to try to sell someone from the 50’s a bottle of water what do you think they would say?  I bet they would think you are crazy.  An argument my Grandpa has is “Why would you want to buy in in a bottle?  You already pay bills to make it come out of a tap?”

Even worse than the consumerism and branding of bottled water is the environmental impacts that bottled water has as a social norm.  According to The Container Recycling Institute “Plastic water bottles produced for U.S. consumption take 1.5 million barrels of oil per year, according to a 2007 resolution passed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors. That much energy could power 250,000 homes or fuel 100,000 cars for a year, according to the resolution.”  The sheer oil that is used to create and transport millions of plastic bottles is insane, not to mention most of these bottles are not being recycled.  The Container Recycling Institute also states “Around 636 thousand tons of PET plastic beverage bottles were recycled nationwide in 2006, but more than three times as much PET was wasted: 2 million tons.  Something isn’t right here.

I think we need to make a change.  If our society is so good at branding maybe we should focus on PUR water filters and Brita for our sources of filtered water.  Who knows, their filtered water could be cleaner anyway.

Having studied advertising and marketing for four years now, I’ve learned more theory then you could shake a stick at.  However, there is no substitute for real world experience. Some of you may be already familiar with the Bateman Competition, a national case study competition held by PRSSA every year. Each university has a team who acts as an “agency” to develop a public relations campaign for the selected client of the year. This gives students a chance to rack up real campaign experience for actual clients and receive some feedback on their efforts as well outside of a professional setting. The Spartan International Advertising Association over at Michigan State University is pioneering a brand new program, the first of its kind in the country, very similar to the Bateman Competition.

Partnering up with internationally renowned media mogul Mark Carassi, the SIAA is forming a “virtual international agency” to work with real clients on a global scale. Using contacts established by Carassi, the SIAA will work with big name players such as LG, Samsung, and Sony providing advertising consulting services in return for educational grants for MSU. Carassi got the idea from a similar program overseas and saw MSU’s student IAA chapter as the perfect fit. The SIAA is the first student chapter of the IAA in the country and for those of you interested in participating in this virtual agency can attend an informational meeting next Thursday, October 15th at 5:30 in room C213 in Wells Hall.

Google Wave launched a week ago. Yes, you might be upset because you didn’t get an invite, but that’s no reason to boycott it. Courtesy of Mashable, I’ve summarized some of the most important aspects of this redefining Web tool:

According to Mashable, “Google Wave is a real-time communication platform.” It’s real-time, so you can witness what other people are typing, character-by-character. Waves can be added to any blog or Web site and be edited by anyone else (wiki). Developers can build apps. in Google Wave; users can playback what’s been said in the past and can drag-and-drop files for sharing. These are just some features associated with Google Wave.

So, what exactly is a wave? “A wave, specifically, refers to a specific threaded conversation. It can include just one person, or it can include a group of users or even robots…Anything you’ve ever discussed in a single chat or conversation is a wave.” Within waves are wavelets, threaded conversations that contain blips, which are the single, individual messages. Blips are like lines in a IM conversation. It is also possible to post documents, extensions, gadgets…pretty much anything that can be shared.

Inside waves, you can share gadgets. For instance, any application already created in iGoogle or OpenSocial can be run within Google Wave. What’s nice is that applications are specific to waves, not individual users. In Facebook, you have to register for that specific app. to use it; in Google Wave, it belongs to everyone in that wave.

Robots are the other wave extensions. However, they’re more robust than the past annoying robots. “They can talk with users and interact with waves. They can provide information from outside sources (i.e. Twitter) or they can check content within a wave and perform actions based on them (i.e. provide you a stock quote if a stock name is mentioned).”

You can even embed a Google Wave conversation and use it as chat room, as a way for visitors to contact you, or something more.

Google Wave is still in its early phases, but soon it will be avaliable for all of us to enjoy and connect with.

Without a doubt, one of Twitter’s most defining features is the @Reply, which allows you to in a sense “notify” another user within a tweet for the purpose of sharing information or just communicating a message. Just this past week, Facebook introduced a copycat feature by allowing you to “tag” other users in wall posts, links, statuses and even private messages. At first glance, one might say what is the use of this feature; I can already post directly on peoples walls. The biggest advantage of Facebook’s new @reply feature is the ability to share information more efficiently. You can in a sense now do mass wall posts in one status update by tagging multiple people and the recipients will all receive notification updates. The heart of social networking is the ability to establish networks and share information and Facebook really hit the mark with this latest update. Already in the week that this feature has been available, my friends and I have jumped on it. Not only is it a great way to share media with a multitude of people, its a fun way to to interact with people on wall posts and status updates. The only real difference between the reply feature in Facebook and Twitter is that Facebook actually posts the reply the tagged person’s wall, whereas Twitter merely notifies the user that they were mentioned in a tweet. Facebook has really stepped its game up in the past 6 months, shifting from being a site focused on finding people, events, and pictures to a real time source of relevant media and information.

Pardon my absence.

I just returned home from Richmond, VA. Why was I there, you ask?

I was visiting the VCU Brandcenter, ranked in 2007 by BusinessWeek as one of the top 60 design programs in the world, and in 2008 by Creativity magazine as the #1 ad school internationally.

Not enough to impress you?

Have I showed you who sits on their advisory board? A who’s who of advertising legends, including Lee Clow, Jeff Goodby, Dan Wieden and others. These people and more make sure to keep the Brandcenter as challenging and rewarding as any ad school can get. David Droga, Creative Chairman of Droga5, sums it up nicely: “If I were a young student aspiring to break into advertising, I would go out of my way to become part of the VCU alumni. There are many good creative schools out there, but only one that cocoons this creativity in the necessary strategic and business sensibilities.”

My Dad and I sat in on the Presentation Skills class for 2nd year students. Each student gave a three minute speech, followed by constructive criticism from other classmates. One would think at such a prestigious ad school that all would be serious, but there was laughter and the overall mood was lighthearted and fun.

Marc Shillum, Director of Branded Design at R/GA, was the weekly Friday speaker. He explained how early consumer impressions, if not first impressions, including when a prospective customer lands on a Web site, are important for consumers when they are looking for more information about a brand or product.

What impressed me the most, apart from the program, was that the students were so incredibly helpful, friendly and obviously bright. One would think that they would secretly compete against each other, since they all desire to work in advertising. But all of them seemed to genuinely like their fellow classmates, and I think everyone wanted the person next to them to succeed.

Overall, I loved the school and how it challenges and pushes students to greater levels of creative thinking. The Brandcenter wants thinkers, not advertisers. Ideas are the currency of the future.

First off,  hi everyone my name is Jonathan Ciani and I am a new intern with Ingenex.

A recent article from USA Today discusses how the “informality of the Internet age”  is contributing to incivility in our modern society.  As many of you may know, there have been several “in-civil” acts that have made mass media as of late.  First off the Republican Republican Representative of South Carolina, Joe Wilson, blatantly called Obama a liar at his address to congress.  Then there  was the issue of Serena Williams physically threatening a line judge at the U.S. Open semifinal.  Lastly, we have Kanye West’s brutal interruption of Taylor Swift during her acceptance speech.  Kanye ran on stage just as Taylor Swift was making her acceptance speech and  interrupted her by saying that Beyonce should have won.

The USA today article explains that this recent incivility is thought by many to be due to the “informality of the Internet age” with which we live.  P.M. Forni, author of The Incivility Solution: What to Do When People Are Rude, told USA Today “American society is among the most informal in the world, and often that informality crosses over into incivility.  Now, you can add the informality of the Internet to this culture, and all bets are off.  It’s an age of total disclosure and total expression, with very little concern for the feelings of others.”  Jerry Bowles, co-founder of SocialMediaToday.com, also added “The ability to comment about others from a distance and with anonymity is the Web’s hallmark and its poison.”

I think most of us can agree with these claims, but as the article states, these issues individually would have been much less exposed by the media if they hadn’t all occurred within such a short period of time.  I think that this article brings up an interesting point, that we all need to realize when it is appropriate to use certain language, behavior and etiquette.  As for Kanye’s disruption, I’d like to think that his arrogance is definitely more to blame than “the Internet age”.  Kanye ended up apologizing to Swift in his blog admitting what he did was wrong.  However, he also included the cocky and childish statement in the blog “I’m just real.”  Shortly after this article Kanye also gave Taylor a personal apology over the phone.  Maybe he realized that he was losing a lot of credibility for his childish behavior.

What do you think?  Is the Internet age primarily to blame for incivilities in our society?  Or are individuals to blame for their lack of etiquette?

I would be remised to skip a formal introduction before I write my first blog as a social media intern at Ingenex Digital Marketing. My name is Brian Vandeputte and I am in my last semester at Michigan State University. I am majoring in advertising and hope to pursue a career in art direction.

Firefox and Safari are the two most prominent web browsers, however, they are obviously not programed and designed by the same company. Case in point, one of my first tasks at Ingenex was to re-design the LA2M Twitter page. I made the alterations on Firefox, and thought they would transfer over to Safari. Little did I know how wrong I would be.

Credit is due to Why Wait Webs, for helping me solve this dilemma. The gist of the problem is that in Safari, color in images mismatches with the CSS background colors. To rectify the situation, use an image instead of a CSS background color. Instead of having #FFF in the background color CSS code, you should have something like background-image:url(bg_solid_color.gif);

Then, if you make any changes in Photoshop, save your work for Web devices. In Firefox, you could save it as a JPG and upload it, but it doesn’t work that simply in Safari.