With competitors Verizon Wireless and AT&T touting their shared data plans, Sprint is doubling down on its Truly Unlimited data offering with a new campaign encouraging people to “Say no to sharing.” The new campaign, created by Sprint and its Team Sprint agency (Digitas and Leo Burnett), features a television commercial, print advertisements, social media outreach, online digital banners and retail integration. The television commercial depicts a family of four trying to determine who should get priority when it comes to dividing the shared gigabytes of their data plan. The father suggests the person who fathered the most children get top priority, while the mother suggests it be the person with the most hair. “Body hair?” the father counters. Through a mouthful of orthodontics, the daughter suggests the person with the most dental work get first dibs. The spot ends with the family still undecided and the message, “Say no to sharing. … Say yes to Sprint.” In recent months, both Verizon Wireless and AT&T have introduced shared data plans, which allow groups of users to use a set amount of data across a variety of devices. The pitfall, according to the campaign, is that many people don’t know how much data they (or their shared devices) are using every month until after they receive their bill. “The concept of sharing a monthly data allowance across a family or group of users increases the likelihood for a surprise monthly bill due to data overage charges,” said Caralene Robinson, vice president- brand strategy and marketing communications, Sprint, in a statement. “This campaign is designed to eliminate the confusion and skepticism about who offers Truly Unlimited data plans without the costly catch of sharing metered data attached. It’s Sprint.”
The Heisman Trust, Nissan, and ESPN created the Heisman House last year as an experiential program at NCAA football games venues to promote the icon and also get the word out about the lesser-known Heisman Trophy Trust. This past weekend, the 2012 campaign took off with new TV ads, and a bigger Heisman House that actually looks like a house (last year it was a big tent.) The Heisman House, which kicked off at Cowboy Stadium in Dallas before the Alabama-Michigan game this past weekend, looks like the front of a college fraternity, and is flanked by two 2013 Nissan Sentra compact sedans. At Cowboys Stadium, each one painted in Michigan and Alabama colors, respectively. Jon Brancheau, VP of marketing at the Nashville-based Nissan North America, tells Marketing Daily that the automaker, a Heisman sponsor since 2005, is in the game as much for the cause as for the cars. The automaker recently extended the partnership through 2016. "Most people don't know the charitable work they do; every penny goes to charitable organizations focused on underprivileged children," he says. "Partly, our goal is to help raise awareness of the work they are doing." The Heisman Trophy is the visible part of a charitable organization that funnels money to help local programs get kids outside to play, whether on youth teams or playgrounds. The problem, however, is that a lot of people don't know that, now that the athletic organization that founded it -- the Downtown Athletic club in lower Manhattan -- went bankrupt in 2002, a repercussion of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Besides Nissan and ESPN, Wendy's and AFLAC are sponsors of the Heisman Trophy Trust that was founded after that. Rob Whalen, executive director of the trust, tells Marketing Daily that corporate partnerships are the lifeblood of the organization, and not just for getting the word out about the trophy. "On the charitable end, we don't solicit donations, so the funding comes from corporate partners and media contracts. What Nissan has been able to do with this event is heighten awareness for the trophy itself, which is enjoying an all-time high right now." He says the is goal is not to get as many partnerships as possible. "We want partners who get the value of our brand. One or two more would be fine." The Heisman House experiential program has a variety of fan events, where participants get social-media uplinks because they are given a scanable lanyard as they enter. Thus, if a fan does the field-goal kick game, their results are automatically uploaded to their Facebook page because the lanyard gets scanned before they make a kick, or do any of the other events. Sports Illustrated, for its part, is doing a constant uplink to a co-sponsored SI.com site of interviews at the House with former Heisman winners. The Heisman House venue also has the actual trophy, where people can get shots of themselves next to it, and have the photo superimposed on a Sports Illustrated cover page. Brancheau says about 15,000 people came through the Heisman House tent last year during the Michigan - Notre Dame game, and that Nissan does digital geotargeting to get people in local markets to come to the event. "We are trying to draw more people in who may not even be going to the game." As in Nissan's activation last year, this year's effort has national TV ads co-produced with ESPN's CreativeWorks, with Nissan's AOR TBWA\Chiat\Day having developed the creative concepts. The six spots, which show Heisman winners joking around in a fictive college-frat style Heisman House, air before kickoff on “ESPN Saturday Night Football” on ABC. The new spots feature 2011 Heisman winner Robert Griffin III -- who, like a fraternity pledge, gets the short end of the stick and has to do dubious tasks to please the older frat brothers. Nissan vehicles are visible when Heisman House habitués drive up or depart. "We really tried to be subtle about branding of the vehicles." The spots drive consumers online to cast a vote for the Heisman winner. Brancheau says Nissan actually has one vote -- the only organization beyond the block of Heisman winners and sports journalists with that privilege. Nissan's vote is derived from consumer input at a cross-promotional Nissan and Sports Illustrated site. At the Heisman House venue at games, Nissan has a fairly light presence with the cars bearing the opposing team paint schemes, and the Nissan log on co-branded signage. "But," says Brancheau, "the contextual relevance is off the charts, and that's one of the great things for us; it makes all of our efforts in NFL and college football more contextually relevant." As for the future. "We've taken the idea and brought it to life, so I think we'll leverage this and keep making it bigger for the foreseeable future."
A new study says social media "disproportionately impacts the viewing behaviors of younger consumers," according to Horowitz Associates.The study says 24% of 18- to-34-year-old adults and 30% of 15- to-17-year-olds have started watching a show on TV because of something they saw online or through social media. All this compares to a 16% for all adult viewers 18 years and older.What about tune in? Some 14% of social media users say it helps remind them to tune into shows. This trend is the highest among 15-to-17-year-olds where the number is 28%. It is 19% among 18- to-34-year-olds.Deeper engagement comes to a narrower group of social media users -- just 11% of consumers say they interact on social media, or other sites or apps, when it comes to content they are watching on TV. Ten percent like posting to social media sites or other Web sites about shows they watch.Sounds like everyone should jump in. But they need to do it carefully.Adriana Waterston, vice presient of marketing and business development for Horowitz Associates, says that in the social media environment, "consumers do not want to feel 'marketed to' or manipulated. A successful social media or interactive strategy must feel genuine, not fabricated."
Under Armour is launching its largest-ever campaign directed at women, including its first female-specific TV ads. The effort, “No Matter What, Sweat Every Day. I WILL,” includes online video spots at the brand's YouTube channel that show athletes doing studio, training and running activities. The campaign includes a social-media competition also accessible through a mobile app. The competition, at the online community whatsbeautiful.ua.com, lets women document and upload daily workouts by posting videos, photos and diary entries. Under Armour will give the women whose stories are the most inspiring an all-expenses-paid training excursion with coaches, trainers, nutritionists and athletes. The company says digital elements also include a dedicated landing page at UA.com, plus online ads on Hulu.com, MTV.com, and FitSugar.com, with television versions on ad pods at Bravo, E!, VH1 and Nickelodeon. Under Armour says it will support the campaign across Under Armour Women’s social media channels, including Facebook, and Twitter at @UAWomen with #IWILL and #WhatsBeautiful. Adrienne Lofton Shaw, senior director of women’s marketing at Under Armour, tells Marketing Daily that the campaign is the culmination of a larger effort begun over a year ago to build relevance among athletic women via a digital program and spokesperson relationships with the likes of Olympic downhill skier Lindsey Vonn. “We have developed this strategy over the past 24 months to begin that conversation with the female consumer, and not just with a traditional advertising push; we wanted to build a unique and authentic relationship.” The campaign supports Under Armour’s new StudioLux Noir black-on-black collection along with other studio, training and running products. StudioLux Noir includes leggings, jacket and tank, all of which will be available on UA.com, as well as in participating retail stores beginning in October. Lofton Shaw says the company began the effort with a targeted digital-only effort last year that included a Facebook program, along with grassroots strategy to sponsor teen and amateur sports programs. “Our goal is to have a 360-degree surround to experience the brand multiple times.” Women’s gear, representing 30% of UA’s product portfolio, is the fastest-growing category in the company’s business, both in the U.S. and abroad, per Lofton Shaw, who adds that unaided and aided awareness and perception of UA’s women’s products have risen sharply since the program launched. Also on tap is a series of cross-promotional “UA Sweat” events in major markets via programs with retailers like Lady Foot Locker, The Sports Authority, and with ESPN-W Fitness Retreat. “The insight is that the best part of the day is working out -- recharging. We wanted to bring that to life,” says Lofton Shaw, who adds that the UA consumer is “intense but driven, goal oriented, and believes in hard work. She is always trying to get better, sets the bar high, and goes for that goal. You won’t see ‘casual’ from us.” Thus, the company is also sponsoring influencer events at performance-workout companies like New York-based spinning studio Flywheel Sports and bi-coastal Barry’s Bootcamp. “Flywheel is a very influential competition-based studio; we like the way they think,” she says, adding that both Flywheel and Barry’s Bootcamp are co-gender. “We don't have to target just women’s spaces,” says Lofton Shaw. “Women want us to talk to them when they are with guys and when they are not.”
Led by uber brands like Coke, Apple and Google, beverage, technology and restaurant brands are dominating social media conversations, according to a new monthly report tracking the social media “conversations” related to the top 100 consumer brands. The report, a collaboration of media industry economic tracker and forecaster PQ Media and social media audience measurement firm uberVU, found that Coke was the No. 1 brand in social media impressions by a margin of two-to-one over the next-most-mentioned brand, Apple, during the month of July, the first for which data is being reported. The report also shows that the top few brands also account for a disproportionate share of total brand mentions in social media. With 1.48 billion impressions, Coke, for example, accounted for nearly 14% of the 10.6 billion impressions generated by the top 100 brands. The report doesn’t yet provide any context for things like seasonality, year-over-year trending, or how the social media brand impressions compare with things like “paid” or “owned” brand impressions generated by brands, but it does provide an interesting insight about the geographic composition of social media as it relates to brands: its global nature. While the U.S. remains the world’s largest advertising marketplace, accounting for nearly half of worldwide ad spending, it only generated 44% of the social media brand impressions in July, according to the report. And for leading brands like Coke and Apple, the social media effect is even more pronounced overseas. Coke generated 87% of its social media impressions, and Apple got 72% of its impressions, outside the U.S. Top 10 Social Media Brands Rank CategoryJuly 2012 IMPs (000) 1 Coke Beverages 1,479,716 2 Apple Consumer Tech 761,162 3 Google Consumer Tech 606,805 4 Amazon Retail 555,513 5 Samsung Consumer Tech 469,327 6 Starbucks Restaurants 382,215 7 Burger King Restaurants 316,636 8 Sprite Beverages 302,821 9 Microsoft Consumer Tech 284,681 10 McDonald’s Restaurants 271,572 Note: Data based on full month period Source: PQ Media, uberVU
With competitors Verizon Wireless and AT&T touting their shared data plans, Sprint is doubling down on its Truly Unlimited data offering with a new campaign encouraging people to “Say no to sharing.” The new campaign, created by Sprint and its Team Sprint agency (Digitas and Leo Burnett), features a television commercial, print advertisements, social media outreach, online digital banners and retail integration. The television commercial depicts a family of four trying to determine who should get priority when it comes to dividing the shared gigabytes of their data plan. The father suggests the person who fathered the most children get top priority, while the mother suggests it be the person with the most hair. “Body hair?” the father counters. Through a mouthful of orthodontics, the daughter suggests the person with the most dental work get first dibs. The spot ends with the family still undecided and the message, “Say no to sharing. … Say yes to Sprint.” In recent months, both Verizon Wireless and AT&T have introduced shared data plans, which allow groups of users to use a set amount of data across a variety of devices. The pitfall, according to the campaign, is that many people don’t know how much data they (or their shared devices) are using every month until after they receive their bill. “The concept of sharing a monthly data allowance across a family or group of users increases the likelihood for a surprise monthly bill due to data overage charges,” said Caralene Robinson, vice president- brand strategy and marketing communications, Sprint, in a statement. “This campaign is designed to eliminate the confusion and skepticism about who offers Truly Unlimited data plans without the costly catch of sharing metered data attached. It’s Sprint.”
The Heisman Trust, Nissan, and ESPN created the Heisman House last year as an experiential program at NCAA football games venues to promote the icon and also get the word out about the lesser-known Heisman Trophy Trust. This past weekend, the 2012 campaign took off with new TV ads, and a bigger Heisman House that actually looks like a house (last year it was a big tent.) The Heisman House, which kicked off at Cowboy Stadium in Dallas before the Alabama-Michigan game this past weekend, looks like the front of a college fraternity, and is flanked by two 2013 Nissan Sentra compact sedans. At Cowboys Stadium, each one painted in Michigan and Alabama colors, respectively. Jon Brancheau, VP of marketing at the Nashville-based Nissan North America, tells Marketing Daily that the automaker, a Heisman sponsor since 2005, is in the game as much for the cause as for the cars. The automaker recently extended the partnership through 2016. "Most people don't know the charitable work they do; every penny goes to charitable organizations focused on underprivileged children," he says. "Partly, our goal is to help raise awareness of the work they are doing." The Heisman Trophy is the visible part of a charitable organization that funnels money to help local programs get kids outside to play, whether on youth teams or playgrounds. The problem, however, is that a lot of people don't know that, now that the athletic organization that founded it -- the Downtown Athletic club in lower Manhattan -- went bankrupt in 2002, a repercussion of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Besides Nissan and ESPN, Wendy's and AFLAC are sponsors of the Heisman Trophy Trust that was founded after that. Rob Whalen, executive director of the trust, tells Marketing Daily that corporate partnerships are the lifeblood of the organization, and not just for getting the word out about the trophy. "On the charitable end, we don't solicit donations, so the funding comes from corporate partners and media contracts. What Nissan has been able to do with this event is heighten awareness for the trophy itself, which is enjoying an all-time high right now." He says the is goal is not to get as many partnerships as possible. "We want partners who get the value of our brand. One or two more would be fine." The Heisman House experiential program has a variety of fan events, where participants get social-media uplinks because they are given a scanable lanyard as they enter. Thus, if a fan does the field-goal kick game, their results are automatically uploaded to their Facebook page because the lanyard gets scanned before they make a kick, or do any of the other events. Sports Illustrated, for its part, is doing a constant uplink to a co-sponsored SI.com site of interviews at the House with former Heisman winners. The Heisman House venue also has the actual trophy, where people can get shots of themselves next to it, and have the photo superimposed on a Sports Illustrated cover page. Brancheau says about 15,000 people came through the Heisman House tent last year during the Michigan - Notre Dame game, and that Nissan does digital geotargeting to get people in local markets to come to the event. "We are trying to draw more people in who may not even be going to the game." As in Nissan's activation last year, this year's effort has national TV ads co-produced with ESPN's CreativeWorks, with Nissan's AOR TBWA\Chiat\Day having developed the creative concepts. The six spots, which show Heisman winners joking around in a fictive college-frat style Heisman House, air before kickoff on “ESPN Saturday Night Football” on ABC. The new spots feature 2011 Heisman winner Robert Griffin III -- who, like a fraternity pledge, gets the short end of the stick and has to do dubious tasks to please the older frat brothers. Nissan vehicles are visible when Heisman House habitués drive up or depart. "We really tried to be subtle about branding of the vehicles." The spots drive consumers online to cast a vote for the Heisman winner. Brancheau says Nissan actually has one vote -- the only organization beyond the block of Heisman winners and sports journalists with that privilege. Nissan's vote is derived from consumer input at a cross-promotional Nissan and Sports Illustrated site. At the Heisman House venue at games, Nissan has a fairly light presence with the cars bearing the opposing team paint schemes, and the Nissan log on co-branded signage. "But," says Brancheau, "the contextual relevance is off the charts, and that's one of the great things for us; it makes all of our efforts in NFL and college football more contextually relevant." As for the future. "We've taken the idea and brought it to life, so I think we'll leverage this and keep making it bigger for the foreseeable future."
A new study says social media "disproportionately impacts the viewing behaviors of younger consumers," according to Horowitz Associates.The study says 24% of 18- to-34-year-old adults and 30% of 15- to-17-year-olds have started watching a show on TV because of something they saw online or through social media. All this compares to a 16% for all adult viewers 18 years and older.What about tune in? Some 14% of social media users say it helps remind them to tune into shows. This trend is the highest among 15-to-17-year-olds where the number is 28%. It is 19% among 18- to-34-year-olds.Deeper engagement comes to a narrower group of social media users -- just 11% of consumers say they interact on social media, or other sites or apps, when it comes to content they are watching on TV. Ten percent like posting to social media sites or other Web sites about shows they watch.Sounds like everyone should jump in. But they need to do it carefully.Adriana Waterston, vice presient of marketing and business development for Horowitz Associates, says that in the social media environment, "consumers do not want to feel 'marketed to' or manipulated. A successful social media or interactive strategy must feel genuine, not fabricated."
Under Armour is launching its largest-ever campaign directed at women, including its first female-specific TV ads. The effort, “No Matter What, Sweat Every Day. I WILL,” includes online video spots at the brand's YouTube channel that show athletes doing studio, training and running activities. The campaign includes a social-media competition also accessible through a mobile app. The competition, at the online community whatsbeautiful.ua.com, lets women document and upload daily workouts by posting videos, photos and diary entries. Under Armour will give the women whose stories are the most inspiring an all-expenses-paid training excursion with coaches, trainers, nutritionists and athletes. The company says digital elements also include a dedicated landing page at UA.com, plus online ads on Hulu.com, MTV.com, and FitSugar.com, with television versions on ad pods at Bravo, E!, VH1 and Nickelodeon. Under Armour says it will support the campaign across Under Armour Women’s social media channels, including Facebook, and Twitter at @UAWomen with #IWILL and #WhatsBeautiful. Adrienne Lofton Shaw, senior director of women’s marketing at Under Armour, tells Marketing Daily that the campaign is the culmination of a larger effort begun over a year ago to build relevance among athletic women via a digital program and spokesperson relationships with the likes of Olympic downhill skier Lindsey Vonn. “We have developed this strategy over the past 24 months to begin that conversation with the female consumer, and not just with a traditional advertising push; we wanted to build a unique and authentic relationship.” The campaign supports Under Armour’s new StudioLux Noir black-on-black collection along with other studio, training and running products. StudioLux Noir includes leggings, jacket and tank, all of which will be available on UA.com, as well as in participating retail stores beginning in October. Lofton Shaw says the company began the effort with a targeted digital-only effort last year that included a Facebook program, along with grassroots strategy to sponsor teen and amateur sports programs. “Our goal is to have a 360-degree surround to experience the brand multiple times.” Women’s gear, representing 30% of UA’s product portfolio, is the fastest-growing category in the company’s business, both in the U.S. and abroad, per Lofton Shaw, who adds that unaided and aided awareness and perception of UA’s women’s products have risen sharply since the program launched. Also on tap is a series of cross-promotional “UA Sweat” events in major markets via programs with retailers like Lady Foot Locker, The Sports Authority, and with ESPN-W Fitness Retreat. “The insight is that the best part of the day is working out -- recharging. We wanted to bring that to life,” says Lofton Shaw, who adds that the UA consumer is “intense but driven, goal oriented, and believes in hard work. She is always trying to get better, sets the bar high, and goes for that goal. You won’t see ‘casual’ from us.” Thus, the company is also sponsoring influencer events at performance-workout companies like New York-based spinning studio Flywheel Sports and bi-coastal Barry’s Bootcamp. “Flywheel is a very influential competition-based studio; we like the way they think,” she says, adding that both Flywheel and Barry’s Bootcamp are co-gender. “We don't have to target just women’s spaces,” says Lofton Shaw. “Women want us to talk to them when they are with guys and when they are not.”
Led by uber brands like Coke, Apple and Google, beverage, technology and restaurant brands are dominating social media conversations, according to a new monthly report tracking the social media “conversations” related to the top 100 consumer brands. The report, a collaboration of media industry economic tracker and forecaster PQ Media and social media audience measurement firm uberVU, found that Coke was the No. 1 brand in social media impressions by a margin of two-to-one over the next-most-mentioned brand, Apple, during the month of July, the first for which data is being reported. The report also shows that the top few brands also account for a disproportionate share of total brand mentions in social media. With 1.48 billion impressions, Coke, for example, accounted for nearly 14% of the 10.6 billion impressions generated by the top 100 brands. The report doesn’t yet provide any context for things like seasonality, year-over-year trending, or how the social media brand impressions compare with things like “paid” or “owned” brand impressions generated by brands, but it does provide an interesting insight about the geographic composition of social media as it relates to brands: its global nature. While the U.S. remains the world’s largest advertising marketplace, accounting for nearly half of worldwide ad spending, it only generated 44% of the social media brand impressions in July, according to the report. And for leading brands like Coke and Apple, the social media effect is even more pronounced overseas. Coke generated 87% of its social media impressions, and Apple got 72% of its impressions, outside the U.S. Top 10 Social Media Brands Rank CategoryJuly 2012 IMPs (000) 1 Coke Beverages 1,479,716 2 Apple Consumer Tech 761,162 3 Google Consumer Tech 606,805 4 Amazon Retail 555,513 5 Samsung Consumer Tech 469,327 6 Starbucks Restaurants 382,215 7 Burger King Restaurants 316,636 8 Sprite Beverages 302,821 9 Microsoft Consumer Tech 284,681 10 McDonald’s Restaurants 271,572 Note: Data based on full month period Source: PQ Media, uberVU
Fellow Email Insider Mike May had a post recently about sharing content from social with email, asking the question: Does it make good copy? Mike’s conclusion was that social media content can’t just be dropped into an email marketing message as you would a bouillon cube into boiling water and come up with chicken soup. I had already started writing this piece, which was inspired by Mike’s, when I noticed another colleague, Wacarra Yeomans, had added her thoughts to the discussion and shared some great suggestions on how you can make your social and email content work on multiple channels. I think this discussion is important and worth continuing -- and so, at the risk of my editor suffering a self-inflicted palm-print on her forehead, here we go again. My experience has been that generally speaking, consumers are very intuitive about how they use the channels available to them. One buying journey or brand interaction can encompass many different channels and they aren’t reading a map as they go. So, as Wacarra rightfully pointed out, there is some room for message overlap -- in fact, quite a bit of it, as long as you give it due consideration and don’t just spew the same content across multiple channels without thinking about what will work best on each individual one. Social channels provide marketers a wonderful virtual duck blind where they can actually see the reactions to their campaigns and use not just feedback, but direct interactions with their target market, to optimize their approach. Social channels will help you gauge what is relevant and effective and will allow subscribers and non-subscribing consumers to inspire you to create even more effective content. It’s the transparency and reach of other social networks such as Twitter that can really be a boon for your creative marketing. Here’s how I think you can put social channels such as Twitter and Facebook to work for your email marketing content. Listen Social media hosts the biggest and noisiest cocktail networking party on the planet. Trying to shout over everyone’s heads won’t do you any good. We all know that it’s a great way to monitor the “vibe” your brand has, but it’s also a great way to gain inspiration for content by hovering (for example, create some Google alerts) around the conversations taking place on different networks. Ask Why not use social media channels to crowd-source content? Ask people how they are adding value to their lives with your product or service and use that feedback for engaging content. Involve Asking and crowd-sourcing involves people with your brand and may enhance loyalty. I think it sends a very strong and positive message that you value your customer’s opinions. As well, their reactions may make excellent content you can share via email. Accessibility Regardless of the channel, a brand’s accessibility to customers is a powerfully positive message. Think of it; loyalty is enhanced when people know you are there to listen when they have something to say and their opinions are valuable to you. Test Once you’ve hit that send button the content is out there, but with other social channels you can dip your toes into ideas and hopefully get some feeling as to how effective or engaging that content might be bt putting some feelers out there. Fly, Fly, Fly Down the Infobaun From email to Linkedin, these channels are all lanes on the same information highway, so why shouldn’t you use every single one to find the fastest route to your goals?
I hate politics. Politics is like your underwear -- I know you have them on, but I really don’t want to see them. This time of the election cycle, and with the advent of social media, politics and political messaging has become close to unbearable. I know the Internet has morphed into a social animal over the last few years, and Facebook is one of the best and worst inventions of my lifetime. I don’t put it up in the pantheon of developments with the microwave oven, the ATM machine, the cell phone, or even the Internet itself, but it’s pretty darn useful. I get to see and hear from people whom I’ve known for many years. I get to stay in touch with loads of people that otherwise may have fallen out of touch. All that being said, I wish they would keep their politics to themselves. Political advertising is bad enough without Facebook friends having to weigh in and create more viral antagonism. The negative advertising I see on television coming from all sides has achieved new heights, and with it my opinion of politicians has sunk to new lows. We live in a media-driven culture and unfortunately ratings and circulation are associated with the extreme right and extreme left, and the sanity of the middle is left out in the cold. Those of us who sit in the middle of the political spectrum, who are cursed with the ability to recognize both sides of the argument and who recognize the flaws as well as the promise of both sides, become disillusioned with the debate in general. Our government is run by egotistical, self-centered children who fail to recognize the wonderfully rich history of the nation and the promise of a future that we want to leave to our children in favor of their own infamy and power. I’m somewhat surprised that I have yet to see someone on the floor of Congress kicking, screaming, and throwing their hands in the air when they don’t get their way -- the same way my three-year old does when he misses his afternoon nap, plays outside all day and it’s 9 p.m. on a Saturday night. It’s probably only a matter of time. On Facebook I would hope to see more mild-mannered, intelligently driven debate about the issues and fewer personal attacks against the key figures by people I know and respect. Unfortunately I see more of the same extremist points of view and less of a desire to understand both sides of the issues. I see people posting funny pics (yes, some of them are actually quite funny) and political gaffes (yes, some of these are simply frustrating and embarrassing), but rarely do I witness intelligent forwarding of the issues that matter most. I have yet to make up my mind regarding all of the issues at hand, but my motivation is to ensure a strong future more so than ensure that “my team wins.” I honestly hear more intelligent debate regarding NFL issues from sports talk radio on my commutes back and forth than I do from any political discussion through the media. The Internet is an amazing thing, and the people in my life are amazing people. I would not trade any of them, and I would not trade on any of my life experiences to be a different person. I do however wish to see, in my lifetime, a political race and subsequent media coverage driven by topics such as the economy, health coverage, personal rights and substantive foreign policy rather than who stood under the wrong sign at a convention, who paid for an outrageous haircut, or who misspelled something basic in a letter to the editor in college. I wish to show my sons that our political process is one based on truth and intelligent debate rather than name-calling and personal attacks. I wish to show my sons that media can actually be unbiased, truthful and fair to all sides. This election season we have two worthy presidential candidates. One has one point of view and the other has a different point of view. One comes from business and one comes from politics. They both have their faults, but I hope they both will be mature enough to surround themselves only with the kinds of people who reflect a mature way of tackling a serious topic like running the most amazing country on the planet. If not them, then maybe the next time around? I know it’s not a marketing topic, per se, but as a marketer I do honestly feel that a mature, ethical, honest point of view based on personal integrity is the right way to promote your message. I’m sure you would agree.