The Big Fat Marketing Blog

If you’re bracket-obsessed and broadband-enabled, you’re in luck. This year roundball fans have a wider range of choices than ever for following their favorite picks in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament, a/k/a “March Madness.” Those far from a TV—or at work—will be able to check their stats and bracket picks online, in social networks and via mobile.

And they’ll do so in branded environments. Brands know visitors to those sites are already growing before the March 19 tipoff and will only increase until the final championship match on April 6 in Detroit. And they’re hurrying to garner some of that attention by sponsoring those sites. more

Social media marketer Brickfish has designed and is managing a search for America’s premier eco-warriors, in an online contest sponsored by outdoor apparel maker The North Face and textile manufacturer Polartec.

The competition asks people to submit content—blog posts, photos or videos—that documents the passion of someone they know for environmental causes. The winner, chosen around May 13, will be rewarded with a $1,000 shopping spree and a $15,000 donation to the green cause of his or her choice. more

In the lodging industry, inventory is on a 24-hour sales cycle. Any revenue lost from an unoccupied room is money that can’t be earned back; you simply have to try again the next night. So hotels are by nature very interested in anything that can keep those rooms as full as possible, even if that requires discounting the standard price.

And the current economy is making that ability to market quickly even more crucial, with so many companies cutting back so drastically on travel and conference attendance.

Mobile marketing firm Ping Mobile believes it has the answer, in the form of its Ping Wizard SMS customization technology. more

Editor’s Note: I like this YouTube Symphony Orchestra project. It seems like one of the things Web video was built for, helping creative people collaborate and share content with flexibility and customization. I like it so much that, now that the 90 orchestra members have been chosen and are headed for New York to rehearse and then play their concert on April 15, I’m rerunning the original post on the assumption that many people had better things to read on Dec. 23, when it first appeared. more

In this economy, you can’t go wrong giving away free food. The Denny’s restaurant chain hit an apparent home run with its Super Bowl ad touting a free Grand Slam breakfast on the Tuesday after the big game. Two million customers showed up on Feb. 3 for a meal on the house–which CEO Nelson Marchioli characterized to analysts the next day as “a very encouraging lift in guest traffic,” hopefully including many of the “light and lapsed” customers Denny’s was targeting.

But you don’t need to spend the estimated $5 million Denny’s dropped on creative and media buys during the Super Bowl to run a successful giveaway. Sandwich chain Quiznos achieved almost the same strong results with an online promotion offering a downloadable coupon for a free sub. more

Jory Des Jardins knows a thing or two about social media. In 2005 she co-founded the BlogHer conference with two partners, Elisa Camahort and Lisa Stone, to build a community among women bloggers. In 2006, the trio added a BlogHer ad network that hooks brands up as advertisers and sponsors to more than 2,500 targeted, qualified blogs, chosen from among the more than 18,000 blogs in the total BlogHer network and reaching 14 million unique visitors a month.

So we thought it would be well worth talking with Des Jardins about the interest brand marketers have been showing in using social media to reach customers in new ways. What campaigns and channels does she think offer the chance of building strong new relationship with consumers, and which fall into the category of brand marketers chasing the latest Shiny New Thing? more