Me neither…but maybe if there was a saying about that, Tiger Woods might not be standing silently in a black and white commercial with his late father, Earl, speaking to him regarding his indiscretions. Like father like son.

Tiger, Earl and Nike: They just did it.

Woods’s potentially career-ruining escapades consumed gossip blogs, cable channels and even the New York Times.

As each mistress revealed herself–pun not intended– the  ultimate public relations challenge emerged: how can a person come back from such a damaging personal crisis?

For Tiger Woods and Nike, the answer to that question comes in the form of a strategically planned PR blitz, peaking with the now infamous black and white Nike ad featuring Earl Woods’s voice.

How effective is this strategy?

You can judge for yourself.

Dean Crutchfeild, brand consultant and contributing author for Advertising Age’s “Chief Marketing Officer” column recommends four steps to planning for and recovering after a reputation ruining crisis à la Tiger or Toyota.

How to Advertise After a Crisis:

1. Expect the best; plan for the worst.

Crutchfeild states that those who fail to prepare are “preparing to fail,” and he goes on to cite ‘the Miracle on the Hudson’ and the heroic vigilance of Captain Chesley Sullenberger.

In what could have been a potentially image shattering event, Captain Sullenberger’s preparedness prior to the crisis situation prevented it from becoming the worst case scenario.

2. Decentralize decision-making.

Crutchfield states, “as social media becomes ubiquitous and customers participate more, the role of the CMO is crucial in crisis, as they’re able to inculcate social media to empower customers to play a key role.“

Bank of America, for example, tracks every mention of its name on Twitter and often responds to negative mentions with offers or answers.

3. Respond boldly.

Rather than pushing consumers back into the air after the 9/11 crisis, United sent a bold message of compassion.

Directly after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, Americans stopped flying. Rather than explicitly encouraging consumers to get back in the air, United Airlines, through their advertising agency, Fallon Worldwide, communicated a different message. Here it is reprinted in full:

Monday, September 10.

On Monday, a hose in my sink broke just when I needed to rush out the door, and I thought life was being unfair.

On Monday, when you ask people how they were doing without much thought, or contemplation, they replied “fine” or “good.”

On Monday, the papers and the news magazines were filled with stories about the new fall TV schedule.

On Monday, the American flag hung, for the most part, unnoticed at government buildings and schools.

On Monday, we passed strangers without much regard.

On Tuesday, September 11, all that changed.

On Tuesday, September 11, different things seemed important.

On Tuesday, September 11, blissful naiveté was lost. Sanctity was mercilessly shaken.

On Tuesday, September 11, somebody tried to shake America apart.

On Tuesday, September 11, America came together.

On Tuesday, there were no Republicans, Democrats, yuppies, blue collars, or any other labels. There were only Americans.

On Tuesday, September 11, strangers died for each other.

On Tuesday, September 11, the best of the human spirit spit back into the eye of the worst.

On Tuesday, September 11, America was knocked to its knees. On Tuesday, September 11, America got back up again.

We’d like to acknowledge the bravery and selflessness of the rescue workers, medical personnel, and extraordinary citizens of this country. Your acts of heroism and compassion have touched all of our hearts. We’d also like to thank our employees for  their caring professionalism in the wake of last week’s horrible tragedy. We join you in mourning. As we join you in strength.

For United, this bold message was the right one given the timing and context. Pushing flight sales only a week after terrorists used airplanes as a means for destruction would have been wrong and heartless.

United’s approach, on the other hand, aimed to unite an otherwise untied group of shaken Americans.

4. Check, test, check, test.

“When you need to be big, strong and fast and mobilize a massive, sweeping redistribution of information to the public, hide nothing and tell all,” writes Crutchfeild.

Toyota, pay attention.

When a corporation faces a crisis that seriously threatens its integrity, like massive brake failures for a car company, the worst thing the corporation can do is hide behind its previously strong, trusted brand image under the assumption that customer loyalty is all-enduring. It’s not.

Given the good, the bad and the ugly, it certainly is possible to recover after a potentially image ruining crisis, but like United proved through its successful post-9/11 message the person or corporation set to lose following a crisis must first understand the context and timing of the situation to effectively communicate a message of recovery.

—

Crutchfield, Dean. “Recognizing the CMO’s Role When It Comes to Crisis.” Advertising Age. 14 Sept. 2009. Web. 23 Apr. 2010. <http://adage.com/cmostrategy/article?article_id=138995>.

Dorman, Larry. “Gillette to Limit Role of Tiger Woods in Marketing.” The New York Times. 12 Dec. 2009. Web. 24 Apr. 2010. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/13/sports/golf/13woods.html>.

Juicing the Orange. Web. 23 Apr. 2010. <http://juicingtheorange.com/>.

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The proceeds of the Not-So Silent Auction go to the members of the Boston Living Cente

The members of the Boston Living Center (BLC) are no longer living in silence, thanks to an important partnership with an influential group of Boston University  students.

Today from 4-6pm in the Atrium of the School of Management, located at 595 Commonwealth Avenue, you can bid on the art created by artists from the BLC.

“The BLC serves the diverse Boston community living with HIV/AIDS,” said Sarah Weiss, a spokesperson from the event and a senior in the School of Management.

Proceeds from today’s event benefit the BLC’s art fund specifically, which according to Weiss is, “severely underfunded.”

Students from BU’s Leadership Development class are working directly with the BLC to also collect “art supplies donations from local art stores to support the program into the future,” according to the event’s press release.

Cookies and complimentary drinks will also be served at the event, so I, naturally, will make an appearance to consume two of my favorite things: cookies and art.

To learn more about today’s event, visit the Facebook fan page at http://www.facebook.com/notsosilentauction or you can e-mail notsosilentauction@gmail.com.

One of the pieces that will be featured at today's event

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Chalk

Did you know that if you digested chalk, it’s actually poisonous? “Duh,” says the kindergarten teacher whose graying hair tells the story of historic chalk ingestion.

While chalk is “generally found to be non-toxic,” according to the How Stuff Works Medical Encyclopedia, it can cause damage to one’s gastrointestinal tract if consumed. It can also cause damage to one’s college campus’s image if gone unregulated.

Tim Hegan, the Office of Residence Life Hall Director from the Upper Bay State Road Area, admits that the use of chalk to advertise for a campus event, while “fun”, can make “things look a little messy,” which may deter a sensitive set of discerning eyes during this pivotal spring open house season.

In a statement issued in March, Mindy Stroh of the Boston University (BU) Student Activities Office (SAO) dismissed the use of chalk to advertise on the sidewalk, also known as chalking.

Among the other activities banned include taping fliers to “walls, windows, doors, cats, or anything else on or off campus,” and violators face a $50 fine.

The "No Chalking" Memorandum issued by the Student Activities Office with a special edit from SED student Brian Boughton

Hegan, who served in a similar capacity for the office of Residence Life at Tufts University, where there were many more cases of chalking than there are at BU, admits that this form of advertising holds a certain level of appeal since it is “student-centered, student driven and organic.”

Nevertheless, “chalking and having things that are aesthetically questionable for people to see randomly presents a potential financial risk for Boston University,” states Hegan.

In the past, chalking has served as a provocative means of spreading anonymous political or personal messages around a college campus.

According to The New York Times, Dougles J. Bennet, the President of Wesleyan University, dismissed the use of chalking on the Middletown, Connecticut campus in 2002. But in the Wesleyan case, students were not advertising campus related organization events as they were at BU. Instead, the Wesleyan students were depicting sexually explicit acts on the sidewalks, laced with choice four-lettered words to describe presumably unpopular professors.

While BU’s case of the not-so-mysterious chalkers has neither warranted a New York Times feature article nor a Nancy Drew investigation, it has catapulted the seemingly innocent issue of chalk-based advertisements into the limelight, and BU officials have suggested the following alternatives for student organizations:

Ashton Moss paints the expression rock in the BU Beach

Possible Solutions

• Post your organization’s event or information on the SAO’s YouDo site–a forum for BU-related communities events and organizations.
• Contact the SAO regarding advertising options.
• Utilize social media, and send out a Facebook invitation.
• Utilize the central, free expression rock on the BU beach to make your statement.
• Hegan also offered up another suggestion for the future: “[I]n the lobby of every large dormitory there should be a large TV screen sponsored by YouDo or the Student Activities Office  (SAO) that is designated where activities and important dates are advertising, including messages like ‘don’t forget to fill out your census!’”

Whether this is an issue of free speech or fair student communication practices, I am chalking this issue up to creative advertising.

—

ADAM.  “Chalk.”  16 May 2007.  HowStuffWorks.com. <http://healthguide.howstuffworks.com/chalk-dictionary.htm>

09 April 2010.

Rimer, Sarah. “Dirty Sidewalks, or Just Naughty?; Wesleyan Halts a Campus Tradition of Chalk Messages.” New York

Times. 14 Nov. 2002. Web. 8 Apr. 2010. <http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/14/nyregion/dirty-sidewalks-

just-naughty-wesleyan-halts-campus-tradition-chalk-messages.html?pagewanted=1>.

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The 2010 Census Official Logo

In a witty repartee with her openly gay co-host and her husband, Jackie of 100.3 KPEK of Albuquerque, New Mexico asked, “why aren’t the censuses just sent out with our tax returns?”

Because not everyone fills out their taxes, of course.

Instead, the purpose of the Census, according to Partnership Specialist Emily Torres of the US Census Bureau’s Boston Office, is to essentially take a picture of the US population “at a certain point in time”–and the Census Bureau does not limit that number solely just to those individuals who pay their taxes.

‘Sounds simple enough, right?’ asks me, the RA in a 14-person house.

Not quite.

Sure, sending the census to people in their houses and apartments is one thing, but what about all of the people living in this country without the proper numbers and documentation, those living in jails or institutions and the hundreds of thousands of people who cannot necessarily be reached directly via USPS air mail?

These people, as residents of the US, need to be counted, and the means through which they are counted may and can cause a significant red-tape related headache in the same region of one’s brain affected by bureaucratic paperwork.

The Census Flyer created by some very talented AdLab members

But it’s really not that bad.

In fact, this year’s census only has ten questions, and it should only take you ten minutes to fill it out. This is approximately the same amount of time one might spend procrastinating, doing dishes or folding laundry.  The main difference in these these activities, however, is that by filling out your census, you help to bring real change to a community since the census directly impacts federal funding allocations.

Why the Census is Important:

-Census data is used to determine how federal funds are allocated to local, state, and tribal governments.

-Census data aids many government-planning decisions in the areas of education, transportation, and public safety, etc.

-Census data supports research done by faculty, students, and community leaders.

-Census data determines the number of state seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.

In an exclusive Quad interview, we spent some time with Torres of the US Census Bureau’s Boston Office and one of the key hands in the Boston University Census on Campus Campaign.

Here’s what she had to say:

Quad Exclusive Interview with Emily Torres, Census Partnership Specialist

BU Quad: What is the census on Campus initiative?

Emily Torres: [It is] an awareness campaign about the 2010 Census designed to reach college students. The Census on Campus Initiative seeks to educate, engage, and mobilize college and university students, administration, faculty, and parents so that in the 2010 Census, every individual is counted—once, and in the right place.

Historically, the highly mobile college student population living on and off-campus has been hard to count – in part, because many people believe that college students are counted on their parents’ questionnaires. However, students living away from home will receive their own questionnaires, so [as] to prevent students from being counted twice (or not at all) in the census. [The students] and their parents need to know this. As powerful grassroots organizers, students and other educational leaders can have an influential voice in reaching others with the message of the 2010 Census.

Q: How is census on campus different from the Regular Census initiative?

Torres: It targets college students and reaches out to administrators, faculty and student leaders so that they can become partners and help get the 2010 Census messages out. The slogan is an additional message targeted to college students: “Find it, fill it out, be counted”.

BQ: What are the primary goals of the census on campus initiative?

Torres: The Census on Campus Initiative seeks to educate, engage, and mobilize college and university students, administration, faculty, and parents so that in the 2010 Census, every individual is counted—once, and in the right place.

—

If you haven’t already filled out and sent in your census, do it.  Tim Meadows will not show up at your door if you don’t, so just do it.

Find it. Fill it out. Be counted.

USA TODAY lists key dates of the 2010 Census:

Feb 17-19: Advance letters are mailed to areas where Census forms will be delivered in person—mostly in rural areas.

March 8-10: Advance letters are mailed to most homes.

March 15-17: Forms are mailed to most homes.

March 22-24: Reminder postcards are mailed.

March 29-31: Workers count homeless people at shelters, soup kitchens/food vans, and selected outdoor locations.

April 1-10: Second forms are mailed to many homes that haven’t returned first one.

April 10- May 21: Workers distribute and collect forms in prisons, barracks, dorms and nursing homes.

May through July: Workers visit every home that has not returned a form.

Late December: State totals released.

February — March 2011: Detailed data released state by state.

—

http://2010.census.gov/campus/advocate_resources/

• Factsheet [PDF, 96kb]
• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) [PDF, 485kb]
• Brochure [PDF, 314kb]
• Student Orientation Flyer [PDF, 584kb]
• Parent Orientation Flyer [PDF, 588kb]
• Counting College & University Residence Halls (Group Quarters) [PDF, 489kb]
• Partnership Agreement [PDF, 456kb]

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With your cover letters and resume, you advertise your personal brand, with your clothes, you advertise your sense or lacking sense of style, and with your words you advertise your interests and persona.

“What are the best examples, in your opinion, of today’s best advertising?” someone recently asked me, and without a blink, I mentioned those ads that were successful in generating some sort of emotion: the Captain Morgan, E*Trade and Old Spice commercials that make me laugh, the Google commercials that make me tear up, and the P&G corporate commercials that make me want to call my mom to tell her that I love her (and tear up).

But really, I wish I would have been asked the following question: Lindsey, oh great and modest advertising mind of the not so distant future, what, in your insightful opinion, are the best examples of the worst advertisements?

My answer? Personal ads.

For a quick, non-youtube generated laugh, I recommend the following sites that demonstrate the best of the best of personal advertising. Enjoy.

A potential suitor on Stache Passions

Stache Passions: Do you want a man with a mustache? Men with awesome mustaches, do you want to find a man or woman who has a thing for men with mustaches? Find your future mate and fellow mustache enthusiast at this quirky dating site. Keep in mind that those men under the age of 35 advertising their “stache passion” are probably hipsters, and those over the age of 35 probably harbor a secret crush on Tom Selleck during his Magnum PI days.

Trek Passions: For geeky sci-fi nerds searching for their male or female counterpart. Mustaches may also be included.

Eons: God forbid the day that you will be instrumental in the selection of your parents’ selection of a new mate, but if that day comes, I recommend checking out this site that offers an “online community for BOOMers”.

For those pursuing these sites for more than just a tickled laugh, may the force be with you.

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As Winnie the Pooh once said, “you can’t stay in your corner of the forest waiting for others to come to you—you have to go to them sometimes;” this is exactly what digital marketers are doing. Advertisers are relying more and more heavily on “mobile marketing,” which allows a business with a physical location, also know as a brick-and-mortar location, to drive foot traffic to their stores–a recent issue for store owners given the popularity of online shopping.

The author's not-so-smart phone/antique

Similar to the way the digital medium shifted marketing budgets with investments in search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM), the mobile medium popularizes location-based marketing and subsequently brands become ubiquitous. Smart phones, with their ease of multimedia exchange and innumerable applications, have aided greatly in this process: they now dominate the cell phone market with a 12% share, according to a 2009 ComScore report, and this figure is rising rapidly.

According to mashable.com, the “social media guide,” location-based marketing, also known as mobile marketing, allows “any business with a physical location to not only communicate with customers online, but actually get more of them to walk in the door” through contact with the consumer through their smart phone.

However, according to a report by the Mobile Marketing Watch, experts predict a 16% drop in mobile advertising expenditures for the year 2010—not surprising considering the “Big Brother” effect by alerting your actual location to anyone connected to your digital space.

Despite the predicted spending drops, mobile marketing is not a fad that will soon disappear. In fact, the recent drop in ad spending, according to research at the Borrell Associates, is only a blip in the radar for long-term mobile ad spending, which reportedly will reach $4 billion by 2015 (adage.com).

Sounds familiar? It should. Two words: social media.

Here’s the typical marketplace story: the fickle marketer, attracted by the huge pool of potential consumers in the digital realm, first jumped on the bandwagon, spent a lot of money, stopped briefly, and is now reportedly going to spend more on digital advertising than traditional media (mobilemarketingwatch.com).

As attractive and profitable as the digital space may seem, the marketer must stay grounded in their brand’s underlying strategy and understand that the next big trend in digital advertising, mobile and location-based marketing, represents just one part of the whole by keeping two key lessons in mind: content is king and the integrated marketing campaign should reflect one, cohesive message.

1. Content is King: With the recent implosions of Wall Street and Toyota, the consumer craves transparency. Gone are the days when offers were accepted at face-value. Consumers want to see the facts, to actually see the Emperor’s clothes. Cool new deals sent to consumers’ smart phones will only make a meaningful impact on sales or customer loyalty if the content is perceived as reliable and consistent. The medium through which consumers receive marketing messages certainly matters, but if the consumer doesn’t buy the content, they will not buy the offer.

2. Integrated Marketing Campaign: Consistency is Key: After solidifying strong content and determining one, single brand truth, the message should be reflected through a multi-medium platform strategy. In his weekly Media Business Column in the New York Times on March 15, David Carr cited the trend of social media sites, like Twitter and Facebook, increasing TV viewership for specials like the Superbowl, the Olympics and the Oscars. Too soon has traditional media dismissed itself as being obsolete. Rather, this link between TV viewership and Twitter demonstrates not the revival of TV but instead the important connection and links between several mediums being consumed at once.

What was once a love affair with social media is beginning to shift from the consumer’s personal computer to a smart phone. Through this digital touch point, marketers and other consumers alike can know the location of a person, and insights from this information can ultimately lead an increase in customer loyalty or revenues.

FAVORITE APPS OF BU STUDENTS:

iPhone

Mine, of course, is photocalorie, the application that allows you to take a picture of your food and, after some simple data entry, know the nutritional value.

Zachary Koenig, Senior in the School of Management: Blackberry

brickbreaker: Described by Koenig as “the best game ever” that came with his phone.

Megan Zappulla; Senior in the School of Management: Andriod

Pandora: This application allows you to create a new, personalized radio station or access your existing account.

Facebook: Access your news-feed and wall on your phone!

G-Chat: instant messaging through Google that is a smart and free alternative to texting.

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As of late, my eyesight has been failing with my 21–almost 22 years–and I couldn’t be happier. Without squinting, I can hardly read the fun-ruining label on the back of the Pop Tarts box, and life is good.

However, Larry Istrail, a Masters student in the Sargent College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences, has worked with Dr. Mark Boguski and Dr. Vince Fusaro from Harvard Medical School (both have Ph.D.’s and Boguski has his M.D. in addition) and Adam Marcus from MIT to develop PhotoCalorie, a revolutionary iPhone application that essentially allows you to know the nutrition value of almost any food item just by taking a picture of it.

Despite my mixed feelings about the inherent evil of nutrition labels, I think this application is actually pretty awesome.

The PhotoCalorie Process

BUQuad: What is PhotoCalorie?

Larry Istrail: PhotoCalorie is a free iPhone food journal created to help people monitor their nutrient intake and become more aware of what they are eating.

BQ: How does it work?

LI: Just take a picture of your food, enter a short description, and we do a ‘Google I’m Feeling lucky’ type search to find a good estimate of your meal’s nutrition information.

BQ: Tell us about the development process.

LI: The idea for this first came from Dr. Mark Boguski at Harvard Medical School. He envisioned using the iPhone technology and built in camera to create an interactive food journal to make people more aware of their eating behavior. He recruited me and Vince Fusaro, Ph.D. from Harvard Medical School, to help, and we started this project in June.

Vince started programming the iPhone app while I worked on creating a food database of common foods as well as from foods from common food chains and restaurants. But we had no good way of connecting the iPhone app to the database. We wanted to eliminate the tedious food search of the other food journals. They require you to search for each food item separately, and you have to find the exact food from a drop down menu of about 100 similar foods, which itself can be very imprecise. We wanted the iPhone to do this search for the user.

But to do this, we needed more help. None of us had the skills required. And then I realized one day that my cousin, Adam Marcus, is getting his PhD at MIT right now in databases! So I called Adam, and he joined our team. He programmed the algorithm that would take the description a user would write in the iPhone app and search through our food database to find the nutrition content.

BQ: What obstacles did you have to overcome?

I suppose the biggest obstacle we all have to overcome constantly is balancing this with all our full time commitments. For me, going to class and working and being a resident assistant, as well as working on PhotoCalorie and my master’s thesis has been challenging.

BQ: Why should people download this app?

Whether [you] want to lose weight, build muscle or just be more aware of what you eat, PhotoCalorie can help. If you look at any diet website or book, the first they will say is keep a food journal to keep you on track.

Another feature we feel separates us, is the few steps needed to enter a meal. All other food journals currently available force you to search each item of your meal separately, which is very tedious. With PhotoCalorie, you can just type of all the foods in your meal separated by commas and we will find the nutrition for the entire meal.

BQ: Why should people care about PhotoCalorie?

LI: I think the potential for PhotoCalorie is endless. As a food journal, it requires a fraction of the steps other journals require. Also it is more personal since the pictures you take are the actual food you ate. Also once you take a picture and search for the nutrition once, we store them in a food catalog in the app. That way, since people tend to eat similar things every day, they can just add the item from the catalog to the current date and time. No need to take a picture again.

Finally if you are interested in nutrition and health research, I maintain a blog at PhotoCalorie.com, which can also be accessed through the app, where I describe recent results from diet and exercise studies to help users make informed decisions on what to eat or how to exercise.

—

If Lindsey Frick owned an iPhone, PhotoCalorie would be her second purchase after the T-Pain Auto Tuner.

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I used to read my dad’s refolded newspapers.

Then high school graduation sparked a subsequent graduation from print newspapers to the NYTimes.com. Now, faster than Bob Dylan can slur “these times, they are a-changing,” I have matured to the 140 word or less headlines from @NYTimes that pops up on my Twitter.com home page between @MarthaStewart and @EatBoston. I am obsessed—and I’m not the only one.

Buzz word: Marketers salivate at the mention of ROI or Return On Investment

With over 18 million users in 2009 and a projected 26 million users in the year 2010—approximately 15.5% of all Internet users—Twitter has transformed digital media communications since its conception in 2006, and it represents just one of the many sites shaping the road of Web 2.0. Since Chris Shipley, the Co-Founder and Director of the Guidewire Group, coined the term in 2004, “social media” has grown exponentially, cultivating a new and faster means of communication and collaboration and arguably changing social contact. Marketing and advertising experts, celebrities, and even politicians joining this exciting and innovative means of communication assist in the popularization of this news and information reformation.

According to a 2009 Marketing Pilgrim Social Media Research study, over 80% of Americans use social media on a monthly basis, a statistic that is only increasing. Marketers and businesses target those in the 18-34 age group, also known as “early adapters” since over 90% of this key segment have operated an established web presence on one or any combination of popular social media sites such as YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Wikipedia. The same study states that participation by those in the 35-54 age range grew by a staggering 60% between 2007 and 2009. This is obviously not just a trend for young people.

The explosion of this movement in the past five years leads some to assume a certain level of newness about social media, which is simply not the case. The art of social media has existed in its earliest forms since the mid 90s in the form of online journaling. Just ask long time journalist Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs.

“I’ve been blogging since it has been called journaling in 1998,” according, not so ironically, to Brogan’s blog (http://www.chrisbrogan.com/). Author of The New York Times best seller “Trust Agents: Using the web to build influence, improve reputation, and Earn Trust,” Brogan certainly practices what he preaches.

His impressively loyal dedication of e-followers comprise a community that represents number 18 on his list of “50 Ways Marketers can Use Social Media to Improve their Marketing”: “Start a community group on Facebook or Ning or MySpace or LinkedIn around the space where your customer does business. Example: what Jeremiah Owyang did for Hitachi.”

What exactly did Owyang do for Hitachi?

Taking the otherwise “mundane subject of data storage,” according to Brogan, Owyang projected the Hitachi products into something interesting and talked about. Through blogs and tweeting, Owyang fascinated users, sparking the interest of other marketers and social media geeks. Notable about this action is not the actual subject matter, but the means of information transmission. He made data storage relevant.

Relevance: a result of an effective social media strategy; just ask President Barack Obama.

The "Paris 4 Prez" Campaign Manager

Even Senator John McCain took to social media sites, or rather, social media sites took to Senator John McCain. In a video that eventually spread virally, a term used to characterize the rapid spread of a popular online video, Paris Hilton pledges—or threatens, depending on how one looks at it—to run for President. This infamous vow came after a McCain endorsement displayed Hilton’s image without permission, causing Hilton to counter with a Presidential promise.

According to a 2008 study from “The Daily Telegraph,” Americans spend the most time online, logging approximately 28 hours a month. The French and Spanish follow, boasting figures of 19 and 18 respectively.

Those distracted by the lure of social media sites subsequently fall victim to the vacuum effect. Nevertheless, for businesses, marketers and advertisers, the benefits arguably outweigh the detriments and oftentimes translate into an increase in online sales or overall product awareness.

The dichotomy between the ADD nature of the mess of social media sites and the potentially clutter-free liberation that ideally evolves from a successful social media implementation equally entices and intrigues both producers and consumers of online content—enough to keep even the deeply recession-hit companies to hire social media strategists.

According to @hillholliday, a large Boston based Ad Agency, “Facebook: 80k sites & devices have used Facebook Connect, 60 million users.”

How about that for staying connected?

—

Lindsey Frick puts the Twit in Twitter. Follow her at twitter.com/lindseyfrick. Not to be outdone, go ahead and follow the Quad at twitter.com/buquad.

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By Andrea Avalos (CAS '11)

Still reading?

Good.

…

I lied.

Still Reading?

….

……………

……………………..

…

Darn.

Hi mom. I knew you’d still be here.

Clearly, I don’t have GoDaddy.com’s touch, but they’ve done it again. They taken the seemingly boring world of web domain hosting and made it relevant and sexy with the NASCAR bombshell Danica Patrick.

Patrick was not the only popular spokesperson to make a reappearance this year.

This baby was too old to make the cut

The annoying, albeit cute, E*Trade baby was back. Nothing makes me want to take my personal finances on the internet more than a weird, man-voice baby.

Actually, all three babies that made appearances during this spot were brand new—mostly because the original is now too old to fit the part.

However, not everyone came back to the Superbowl party this year.

Missing among the ranks of Superbowl super stars included most notably the absent Pepsi.

Pepsi notably absent in the Super Bowl ad line-up

Pepsi essentially made the same statement that Lady Gaga would make if she donned a sensible cardigan and a pair of Levi’s during any moment of her public life.

Rather than indulging in the glitz of P. Diddy or the glam of Brittney Spears as it has in the past, Pepsi vowed to spend its advertising budget on the “Refresh Project” that gives millions of dollars away each month for a specific cause.

During a recession, cause-related marketing spikes like beer sales , and it is much easier to justify large ad spending when it’s for a good cause.

Pepsi is not the only one to take a stand.

In a very controversial move, CBS accepted the placement of the Tim Tebow ad featuring the Heisman winner and his mother for the Focus on the Family website.

While the ad never officially uses the word “abortion,” the appearance of a clear pro-life organization has certainly caused people to talk.

Beyond the controversy of the organizations that did and didn’t make a clear statement, there were some clear winners during this 44^th Super Bowl.

The Winners

A Superbowl 44 winner

Budweiser: How did the chicken cross the road? The jury is still out.

How did the Budweiser truck cross the ravine? Fifty some people link themselves in a sacrificial human bridge of sorts to get the truck over the perilous cliff.

Good, funny, and completely accurate.

The Late Show with David Letterman: As the great equalizer, Oprah makes a very funny and very timely appearance sitting on a couch between a distraught Letterman and Leno.

Google: This Parisian love story does not actually show any other image than the typing in a search box on google.com. The story starts with a male student who is clearly studying abroad in Paris, falls in love and by the end of the ad, he searches “how to build a crib.”

While Google never actually shows any people in this ad, just reading the search items moved the approximately 80% female population with whom I watched the Superbowl.

After aww-ing, I tried to hide my one tear.

Yes, an ad for a search engine made me tear up.

Yes, I am judging myself.

The no pants trend: YESSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!! I don’t really care what you think…these were funny. In a probably strategic back-to-back move, Dockers and Career Builder features pants-less people.

Bud Light: One word: auto-tune. I would like to see the sales spikes of the auto-tuner iPhone app. While I don’t necessarily want to drink any more or less Bud Light, I definitely now believe that auto-tuning makes anyone really really cool.

The Misses

Doritos: For me, there is just something about funerals that doesn’t lend itself to humor. The concept of a person faking his death within a casket full of Doritos just doesn’t appeal to me. Bad.

Godaddy.com: This year, Ms. Patrick received a massage from another attractive, young female who removed one shirt to reveal a skimpier tank top. This scene quickly cuts to a black screen with the Godaddy.com URL and logo visibly apparent to lead to an inevitable and probably not sustainable spike in site traffic.

Note: Everyone I watched the Superbowl wanted me to write that this ad “sucked.”

The one with the dead, talking flowers: I don’t even remember the company, which should show how ineffective this commercial was. I also might have been refilling my plate with wings at this time.

Overall

Good year.

Beer dominated—once again proving that beer is recession-proof.

Cars made their point despite—or even in spite of—the current controversy with Toyota, the government and GM.

In the end, the Saints defeated the Colts 31-17, but to me the clear winners were the ads.

—

Lindsey Frick would like to note that this is purely the opinion of her and the 14 other people at her gracious friend’s Superbowl party. She would also like to thank her friends for making fudge and cupcakes acceptable at a Superbowl party since they were delicious.

—

http://adage.com/agencynews/article?article_id=141854

http://www.superbowl-commercials.org/cat/2010

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Yes. Actually, that is exactly what I meant, and thank you to my sister for pointing this out publicly on my Facebook wall.

Regardless of my affinity for sweaters marketed towards the lively 61-99 female age segment, I really did not want to communicate this to my readers in my last blog post hence the cleverly crafted euphemism.

The Plastic-Barbie-Queen-Fake-It-Till-You-Make-It Award goes to Heidi Montag-Pratt!!!

However, now that I’ve officially been exposed both for my lack of fashion sense and for my ability to hide through my words, I’ve opted to take a page out of the Heidi Montag-Pratt “Guide to Self-Love and Promotion” (See: any issue of “Us Weekly” after September 2007) to embrace and expose my gift to the world (See: Heidi Montag’s super serious singing career).

A euphemism is like a good pair of Spanx. It can cover up areas where you might be lacking–or in the case of Spanx, in the areas where you are not lacking (See: Muffin Top).

For me, I first discovered the power of euphemisms between my freshman and sophomore years of college when I was “updating” my resume.

I needed to take it out of high school, but my most exciting college experiences included frequenting the Warren dining hall and successfully not getting smoothed by the T on my walk to class. How was I going to get any employer want to not pay me any money for a highly coveted unpaid internship?

Euphemisms.

Suddenly, my lifeguard experience transcended its actual function, and I became a super hero hybrid angel among gods on paper.

Lifeguard experience before euphemisms:

• Sit on stand and yell at little kids
• Look really cool in trendiest sunglasses
• Get the drowning kids out of the water before their parents interrupt their phone conversations to ironically lecture me about how to do my job

Lifeguard experience after euphemisms:

• Provide a fun yet safe environment for children of all ages that fosters growth and healthy interpersonal relationships
• Employ effective American Red Cross certified methods to maintain safety
• Angel among humans

Okay, so this was not exactly what I wrote on my resume, but hopefully you get the point.

Like anything else in life, there can definitely be too much of a good thing, so I do not condone excessive euphemism usage.

Nevertheless, when used appropriately, euphemisms can give you the ability to hide an embarrassing fact, make something more interesting or compelling or allow you to transform your resume into an even more impressive reflection of your real world expertise.

__

Lindsey Frick would like to note that while it might not be entirely clear from this article, she thinks her sister is actually really awesome.

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• Never Underestimate the Power of Words