The Big Fat Marketing Blog

I’m going to climb out on a limb here and bet that there’s a large contingent of marketers out there that wish some of the more arcane social media channels would just go away. Not all, and maybe even not most. But for a not inconsiderable segment of the consumer and B-to-B marketing populations, things like Twitter, Foursquare, Brightkite and Gowalla are just too hard to figure out. more

Postal stories usually receive an abundance of attention in the online world these days. A story I wrote last week received similar attention. more

While their cell phone was a flop, but Android operating platform a hit, Google is now ready to take on Apple again and its IPAD. Here are the details via PC World.

When filling out the U.S. Postal Service’s National Change of Address form last month, I checked the boxes to sign up for a number of catalogs, including that of furniture retailer Pottery Barn. A few days ago I received a welcome e-mail from Pottery Barn, with the subject line “Pottery Barn welcomes you to the neighborhood!” (right).

Nice, eh? Why, then, is this an e-mail I don’t love?

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Consumers in the market for a greeting card will flip through card after card after card on the racks, looking for the one with just the right sentiment.

Hallmark went through pretty much the same process when it came to compiling a list of mommy bloggers to connect with at the recent BlogHer ‘10 conference in New York.

The retailer threw an early Christmas themed party at an off-site penthouse that was invitation only. For Hallmark, said Deidre Mize, national campaign manager, it was a chance to engage with bloggers and get to know them personally.

“We put out a call on Twitter,” she said. “Some of the bloggers we had worked with before, while others were identified by looking at not just their traffic levels but their content and tone—while snarky is fun, it might not work with Hallmark’s brand.”

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JetBlue says it can laugh at itself, but should the marketing world laugh at what it posted on its blog and in social media sites? It used its BlueTales blog, Twitter and Facebook to get the court of public opinion’s take on the on board incident involving flight attendant Steven Slater.

JetBlue acknowledged it “can’t discuss the details of what is an ongoing investigation.” But it is getting JetBlue’s fans to talk about the incident in its own backyard, and not on someone else’s page.

What do you think? Was this a good idea for JetBlue, or a bad one, and why?