The Big Fat Marketing Blog

Sitting at home tonight after picking up my youngest from soccer (European Football), I was flipping the channels and came to Spike TV. They were airing “The Ultimate Fighter” again and as I half watched a promo came on that the Rugby championship, Melbourne Vs. Parramatta, is to air Sunday at 11:00 am, 10:00 central. I was intrigued.

You see, I love professional American football (Packer, Chief and Steeler fan) and Rugby seems like a sport I could really get into. Mind you, I know virtually nothing about it, even though the first date I ever took my wife on was a rugby match — teams were visiting the US to promote the sport and a match was played at the old County Stadium in Milwaukee. Quite the romantic, hey?

I also, as a youth, ordered several “rugby jersey’s” from Lands’ End. The rubber buttons sold me. more

When it comes to mobile marketing, two channels have gotten most of the attention: text messaging, because almost every phone in the nation can be reached via SMS, and for little cost; and specialized downloadable apps for smartphones, because they create the most buzz, tap into a relatively affluent consumer, and may—just may—earn a little revenue if people are willing to pay something for them in iTunes.

But there are other ways to get an explicit marketing message out to handsets, and research firm eMarketer predicts that one of them—ads displayed in various places on mobile content, including content pages, search results and as independent ads within text messages—will draw increasingly large budgets over the coming four years. more

A new social media campaign for Sara Lee brand’s Fresh ideas pre-sliced deli meats is bringing a bit of humor into the lives of busy, harried moms with satirical “video confessions” courtesy of players from Chicago’s Second City improve troupe.

The content actually comes via Second City Communications, the company’s business-services division, which worked with Sara lee to generate copy for three fictional-but-very-real-sounding “Mama Sagas” that poke fun at life’s mothering problems and manage to work in a pitch for Sara Lee’s Fresh ideas deli line to boot. more

Retailers and brands that sell online are stampeding into social media, a new survey finds—some for fear of looking less modern than their competitors, and others out of concern that they may be getting bad-mouthed without their knowledge.

According to the survey, fielded by multichannel retail consultant The E-tailing Group and consumer review platform PowerReviews, a surprising number of social media tools have achieved wide adoption by brands and retailers in the relatively short time they’ve been available. Eighty-six percent of the brands and merchants who responded to the “Community and Social Media Study” poll said they now use a Facebook fan page. more

According to the National Retail Federation, Congress needs to enact “net operating loss carryback” tax legislation or many retailers will be in trouble.