The winds are blowing as we are getting close to a milestone for the Summit, the Brand Manager’s Summit that is. Preferred registration tuition of $495 ends July 15 (50% off regular tuition). And this year’s Summit “New Media or Die!” promises to be a not-to-miss event for higher ed marketers. 
We will have Kate Keene, Associate Marketing Manager, Education, Google, Inc. and John “CZ” Czwartacki, Executive Director of External Communications, Verizon to go over “5 Rules of Engagement for Higher Education Marketers” and “A Glimpse at Verizon“. Everyone knows the awesome power of Google on the internet and Verizon was listed as one of the top 100 social brand in 2008.
It’s the year’s greatest opportunity for educational marketing and communications pros to learn state of the art brand-marketing strategies and tactics and to network with colleagues from around the country. Opportunities to talk marketing and new media with outside experts, like Kate and John, is one of the most valued aspects of the Summit! They’ll pass on the strategies and tactics that work and don’t work.
We will also have the International Brand Master 2009 on hand to discuss their successes, challenges, and strategies. Voting is over and the Brand Master will be announced soon.
To add more excitement to the two and half days, we included the Brand Challenge – a hands-on team competition allowing you to apply what you learn in a real-world setting, while providing valuable assistance to a worthy non-profit agency! Each team’s assignment will be to create an innovative new media campaign that achieves a non-profit agency’s marketing goals using the tools and skills discussed at the conference.
Register now for the limited attendance event of the year. Preferred registration of $495 ends July 15 (that is more than 50% off regular tuition). Register now! There is also a fun chance to win a scholarship in the Brand Bounce newsletter sent around July 8. If you didn’t get it, sign up for it and it will be sent to you.
With that out of my system, I move on to Advertising that Makes You go Hhmmm…. I recently traveled to Washington D.C. and St. Louis and saw several things that caught my eye and that I thought I would share with everyone.
First in D.C. I saw an ad in the Metro for the Center for Disease Control. I can’t find it online, but it is a picture of a family being covered by a protective umbrella with the names of common illnesses falling like rain. The family under the umbrella is, of course, protected from the falling rain of illnesses. The headline read something like “the CDC has you and your family covered.” It was a nice advertisement. I just found it interesting the CDC felts it necessary to spend advertising money on emotional advertising like this and in the Metro of all places. Why not spend more on flu preventive hygiene and other protective measures. It was one of things that left a weird feeling with me.
Also on the D.C. Metro, I finally had a chance to see something I have only read about. It was a moving ad within the Metro tunnel. I glanced up and saw only a portion of it and can’t even remember what it was for. But here is an example I found on YouTube. This example is from the New York City subway.
The last “hhhmmmm” advertising was in St. Louis. It was a billboard, again I can’t find a picture online. But I did get the website. It was for Don’t Move the Firewood. The message is great – don’t move around firewood cause it could carry and spread tree-harming beetles. A problem Colorado is all too familiar with. The thing that made me go hmmmm was the placement of the billboard itself. It was in the middle of the suburban St. Louis. Unless it was a value add for the organization. I may not be the only one, but picking up firewood isn’t that top-of-mind for me driving through a suburb.
Again, none of the advertising itself was bad. Just had something about it that made me go hmmmm and that I thought was interesting enough to share.
Posted by Travis 
