Vamonos Marketing

Ingenious Nike Tiger Woods Commercial

admin — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 03:24:30 +0000

Nike just launched a new TV commercial with Tiger Woods on the screen and the voice of his late father Earl Woods. I watched it with amazement at the irony of this situation. Major advertisers like Nike once hired Tiger Woods to help build their brand. Now Tiger is being paid by Nike for a campaign that helps (re)build his brand.

America’s New Pastime?

admin — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 03:20:10 +0000

Came across an interesting story on my TV Week daily e-newsletter. It originates from The Hollywood Reporter on a Nielsen report: Americans Increase Their Simultaneous Viewing of TV and Internet Usage Significantly According to the Nielsen Company Three Screen Report, Americans are watching television and surfing the Internet simultaneously more than ever, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Based on the final quarter of 2009, the use of Internet and watching TV at the same time climbed significantly, increasing 35% to 3.5 hours a month. Matt O’Grady, Nielsen Company media product leader, explained, “The initial fear was that Internet and mobile video and entertainment would slowly cannibalize traditional TV viewing, but the steady trend of increased TV viewership alongside expanded simultaneous usage argues something quite different.” Sent this story to my friend who responded that he probably did 3.5 hours of TV/Internet in just one night! I think we discovered a new pastime for Americans–that is, passing the time, entertaining ourselves between two screens and maybe some light conversation. I don’t know if I could say that the activity is cathartic. Maybe therapeutic, or at least numbing. Then again, it shows how ADD has reached a new height–the epitome of multiple sources of stimulation to keep us grounded and satisfied. Just glad I’m a more simplistic man. Hmmm… wasn’t it just the other night I was sitting in front of the TV with my laptop open to e-mail, a research web site and my Facebook while texting my daughter? No sweat in processing all of that. Wait.. what did Ducky just say to Abbey?

Vamonos Goes On-Line with New Body Basics Web Site

admin — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:26:39 +0000

After a good half-a-year in the planning, making, inputting and fine tuning, Vamonos Marketing has gone on-line with a brand new web site for Omaha home and commercial fitness retailer Body Basics. The big re-build project all began during a fact-finding visit when the client complained their web site had virtually no presence on the search engines. Full of content on hundreds of pieces of fitness equipment, the web site indexed so poorly that only typing something as defined as ‘body basics omaha’ would produce a listing for the web site. The more we examined how to possibly fix the five year old “asp” web site the more it seemed obvious that the best solution was to blow it up and start all over. So the conversation changed to what Body Basics would want in a new web site. Beyond more effective search engine optimization, their wish was for a more consistent presentation of all of their equipment and accessories. Though Body Basics does not sell on their web site, we proposed a “shopping cart” format that displayed a uniform flow and look throughout all their categories and products. The result is an entirely refreshed web 2.0 look and feel. The new bodybasics.com is built on a Drupal content management system. The effort involved collaboration between the graphic design flair of Justin Wolta in Chicago and expert Omaha Drupal programmer Jim Berry. Directing the building of the elaborate new site was Vamonos Web Developer Steve Morse, who explains the greatest change to the new site wasn’t just what’s on the screen but what’s behind it. “More than anything else we changed the technical structure of the web site”, Steve expounds, “We went from a tabled format to a css/html table-less infrastructure designed for search engine friendly optimization. Body Basics now has a web presentation attractive to the consumer and Google.”

Ad Musings - Vonage World

admin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 02:14:53 +0000

I get a kick out of the Vonage TV commercial for Vonage World. The ad says with Vonage you can call India–”all of India.” Honestly, I don’t need Vonage to call India. All I need to do is call HP customer service on any phone service about a problem with my printer, and I’m hooked up with India–free. See Vonage “All Corners” TV commercial. Kidding aside. Smart move to target Indian consumers in the U.S. That’s a growing population and I imagine includes a lot of first generation in the States who would like to call their motherland more often if affordable.

2010: Vamonos to Social Media Marketing!

admin — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 04:43:38 +0000

Out of the daze and craze of 2009 I can say in shear exhaustion that it’s been a year of great learning and transition, including our re-focus and conversion to Vamonos Marketing. Of course, education and adaptation is a continual process; but I’ll declare on this News Years day that 2010 marks the full-scale launch of Vamonos into social media marketing. The commitment to social media was made a year ago. Since that decision we’ve invested a lot of time and effort to prepare–to set our course in this direction. We’re not turning our backs on traditional mass media advertising. As the founder and president of Vamonos Marketing, my roots are in the mass media so I’m definitely not ready to write it off. I’ll always look for ways to effectively utilize the mass media for a client–especially if we can also tie it into a social media endeavor. Because the fact is, social media is where the population is giving much more attention. It’s where consumers are going. It’s the buzz, it’s the trend and it’s here to stay. I could not express this new reality as well as this video produced by the social media blog Socialnomics. Video: Social Media Revolution Watch it and you’ll understand why Vamonos Marketing believes in social media marketing–enough to devote most of our time and resources on helping clients harness this amazing power. Here’s to 2010–the year we “vamonos” to social media marketing! Yours, Dan Miller

Cable/Satellite v. Broadcast TV Viewing. Who’s winning?

admin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:28:36 +0000

A question often asked is if more people are now watching cable/satellite network programs than shows carried on the traditional over-the-air broadcast TV networks of ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX and CW. About 91% of the nation receives their TV via cable, satellite or some other alternative delivery form, and the majority of cable and satellite systems place broadcast TV channels side-by-side cable/satellite network channels. This pretty much levels the playing field on accessibility of viewers to choose between any program on any of the networks. Broadcast TV has long held the upper hand by shear legacy since they’ve been established for decades verses any of the newer cable/satellite networks. But that advantage is slipping away as subsequent generations of viewers grow up with the current vast selection of TV channels. To give an idea of how mass viewing patterns are slowly shifting towards cable/satellite network programs let’s take a look at a recent week of national TV ratings. Here’s a little sample of the Nielsen week of 11/30 – 12/06. # 1 Primetime program: Monday Night Football Patriots v. Saints on ESPN with an 8.5 rating of Adults 18 – 49, or 21.4 million adults overall. #2 Primetime program: Sunday Night Football Cardinals v. Vikings on NBC-TV with a 7.8 rating of Adults 18 – 49 or 20.89 million viewers. Sporting events are good at drawing large numbers of viewers so we’ll look at the prime time results for Friday December 4th with no significant sports broadcast. That night included the final episode of the USA Network program ‘Monk.’ That episode, The End Part 2, won the highest overall numbers on record for a drama program on a cable/satellite network. Monk scored a 2.4 rating Adults 18 – 49 with 9.44 million overall viewers beating ‘Medium’ on CBS, ‘Dateline’ on NBC, doubling the audience of ‘Ugly Betty’ on ABC and tripling the viewership of ‘Dollhouse’ on FOX. For now, the Broadcast TV networks are still reigning in overall weekly viewership. The winners of this Nielsen week in order were: FOX, NBC, ABC, CBS, ESPN, Univision and USA Network. Highlighting some other top programs of the week on a variety of networks: - ABC’s ‘Desperate Housewives’ with a 4.9 rating and 14.86 million Adults 18 – 49 - FOX’s ‘House’ with a 4.8 rating and 13.25 million Adults 18 – 49 - ABC’s college football coverage of Texas v. Nebraska with a 4.0 rating and 12.69 million Adults 18 – 49 - CBS’s ‘Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer’ with a 3.8 rating and 10.59 million Adult viewers 18 – 49 - FX’s ‘Sons of Anarchy’ season finale with a 2.3 rating and 4.33 million Adults 18-49 - USA Network’s ‘White Collar’ with a 1.6 rating and 5.55 million Adults 18 – 49 - Bravo’s ‘Top Chef’ with a 1.5 rating and 3.00 million Adults 18 – 49 Another way of answering this question about the trend of TV viewership is how the Broadcast TV networks over the years have bought ownership of many cable/satellite network channels. For example, NBC Universal owns USA Network and Bravo while ABC owns ESPN. That is a subject of its own blog post to further illustrate how the landscape of network ownership reflects the momentum of TV viewing.

Vamonos Launches New Web Site for Omaha Law Firm

admin — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 22:10:10 +0000

Smith, Gardner, Slusky Law of Omaha just went on-line with the first phase of their new robust, contemporary web site by Vamonos Marketing. Our design and initial stage launched Friday December 11 at www.smithgardnerslusky.com. The law firm was so anxious to update their presentation on the web that our initial orders were to “just get that old site off a.s.a.p”. So we mapped out a long-term plan to complete the project in phases, the first milestone in establishing the tone and foundation of new site. Our objective for phase one was to complete a new look, the site template, a listing of all their areas of law and bio pages for the partners at the firm. Smith, Gardner, Slusky also emphasized the user’s ability to contact the firm by phone or internet. That contact invite and form is available on all pages of the web site. While appearance was important, the firm desires their new web site to also be a good resource for visitors and perspective clients for researching the many areas of law practiced by Smith, Gardner, Slusky Law. We felt a content management system would the best investment to organize and present all of this information. Vamonos Marketing is building the new web site in Drupal, a flexible and expansive platform to add and contually update content that expounds on the vast expertise and benefits of Smith, Gardner, Slusky Law. Phase two has begun and additional posts on the web site are to come!

television gallery

admin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 03:00:09 +0000

This is a small sampling of different TV commercials produced by Vamonos Marketing—including its years operating as Miller Marketing.

Category One Gifts & Gourmet of Omaha - Holiday Shopping

admin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:50:27 +0000

Category One is this fantastic store in Rockbrook Village full of very nice cooking ware, cool gadgets, unique dishes and glasses as well as very tasty sauces, jellies and coffees. So our presentation had to reflect the distinctiveness of this locally-owned delight. We were very fortunate to get Nikky Boulay as our spokesperson who is a popular local Radio announcer, dynamite on camera and happens to be a good customer of the store. The twist in doing this ad is that Nikki was very much expecting a baby at the time of production. She did not want to show her full figure so the on-camera scenes had be from the shoulder up. It all worked out fine and the holiday commercials produced great results.

Issue Money on Local TV Double Election Year of ‘08

admin — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 22:54:38 +0000

Turn on almost any TV program this month and you’re bound to see at least one message supporting or opposing national health care reform—likely two of each!

The year began with a barrage of ad money going towards messages about energy and environmental issues. But that seems to have been just the warm up to the hundreds of millions of dollars now being spent on influencing public opinion in the health care debate. And it’s spilling over from nationwide network TV to local network TV affiliate spending.

Katherine Ramirez, local sales manager of ABC affiliate KETV-DT, says that issue money spent to date in 2009 on Omaha local TV is running double of last year. “Last year was an election year when besides all the candidate ads you get a large amount of other ad money about issues in the election,” Katherine explains. “We’re running twice the issue money now in an off-election year.”

The smokin’ red hot button in 2009 is national health care reform. Organizations representing either side of the issue are using a good share of their ever growing cash reserve to include issue advertising in individual markets. A favorite spot to place that money is local TV news. The local audiences are big and the credible newscast environment for such a message is ideal.

As annoying as the torrent of messages has become, viewers will not be seeing the issue ads go away anytime soon. “They’ll probably keep hammering on the health care debate up till when the President signs the bill,” says Don Felton general sales manager for the Omaha NBC affiliate WOWT-DT, “and then comes another election year with more political and issue spending in 2010.”

The best advice to local advertisers who run in newscasts and other popular local TV programming is to plan and place ahead, don’t demand the cheapest rate which will easily get your ad bumped out in a pinch, and be flexible on days and times. Both sales managers have said that local stations are committed to help you get equal or better value if by chance your first choice of program is pre-empted.