“Have the courage to be the Purple Cow”

Throughout my (ongoing) job search this has been my mantra. It comes from Seth Godin’s book Purple Cow which I would definitely advise every marketer to read. The premise of the book is that brown/black and white cows are normal, nothing special. A purple cow, however, would be remarkable. Something (or someone) remarkable is worth talking about, worth paying attention to – in my case, worth hiring. The Drake business school does a great job of churning out brown cows, but what employer wants a brown cow?

Throughout my job search I have struggled with how to market myself as the purple cow. My boss at my internship preaches to me that I need to differentiate myself from everyone else. I go to school in Iowa and I’m a twenty two year old woman, what’s remarkable about that? I figured that if I came to Drake and worked hard, recruiters would be banging down my door to hire me. Wrong. Drake sets us up as brown cows and gives us all the tools to become purple cows but only if we have the drive and desire to get there.

I found my purple cow, have you?

Blogging may seem trivial and only something that the fashion students have time for. However, it is actually one of the most important things you can be doing for yourself. Yes, it takes time and energy to get a blog up and running, and you may be thinking that you don’t have time for a blog. Wrong. The only thing you need to get a good blog going is some strategic planning – once a month sit down and write out an editorial calendar of the posts you want to create that month. Planning is the most important aspect to maintain a blog. TBD on an editorial calendar is bound to mean To Be Disastrous so take the time to plan on what you want to do and stick with it.

As someone trying to make their mark in the business world you need to blog because it is one of the easiest ways to leverage SEO and get yourself found. Every blog post you write becomes another webpage and every webpage is another opportunity to move yourself up in the Google Search Rankings. By doing simple things like sprinkling keywords though your post you can rank well for whatever you want to be associated with, whether that be marketing or fashion or even blogging itself. Unlike other marketing initiatives, with blogging you can improve your SEO with every post. Plus, a blog can be as formal or informal as you want to make it!

Blogs allow you to share your expertise and position yourself as an expert and thought leader in a way that just posting your resume on Linkedin cannot. Your blog should engage your readers and invite them to make comments or ask questions thus making it another platform for communication with potential employers or other cohorts of yours.

Bottom line: blogging is free, it’s easy and it’s something that every student needs to be doing.

It was the dress seen around the world. Last Thursday the internet found itself completely swept up in a debate about a dress: Is it blue and black or white and gold? What actual color is the dress? And why did a dress and rampaging llamas in Arizona take over our social media? There’s a simple answer for the latter question: we’d rather debate something positive, like the dress, than ISIS and Department of Homeland Security funding. Think about it, has anything negative or hard hitting every gone viral? Nope. Everyone was tweeting about this dress and I mean everyone from Taylor Swift to Jimmy Fallon to Kanye and Kim. Personally, I argued about the color of the dress with three different groups of friends.

As for the question about what color the dress is, there is a scientific reason for what color you see. I originally saw blue and black but later saw white and gold and was completely freaked out by it. According to scientists the colors you see depends on the brightness of the environment you’re in and the brightness of the screen you’re viewing the picture on. New York Times explains it really well here.

In today’s marketing world if something is trending on Twitter to the degree that #TheDress was any social media expert that’s worth their salt should be tweeting about it. People who saw blue and black couldn’t imagine how anyone could see white and gold, and vice versa. Twitter was in an uproar. Some quick thinking brands were able to capitalize on the situation and get in on the action. While some attempts were a little awkward…

…Others completely missed the mark:

Not to worry though, some brands did a really good job!

I was very surprised though that Oreo was late to the party 

So… Black/Blue or White/Gold?

I did not like either team in the Superbowl this year so the night was all about the ads for me – and the beer and party food, of course. A lot of the companies released their ads early or at least released teaser ads for their Superbowl ad which is a new phenomenon that I am totally on board with. I was kind of disappointed that the advertisers this year tended to stay away from the funny ads and favor the sentimental ones instead. This can be a risky move as exemplified by the jarring Nationwide commercial however a lot of the companies nailed it. Here are my top 3 ads:

1. Always – Throw like a girl

This is one of my favorite ads of all time. I think it speaks to both girls and boys alike. A longer version of it went viral online in June 2014. P&G put this ad out with the intention of changing the perception people have of doing something “Like a girl”. Always commissioned a study of the ad and says that 76 percent of young women ages 16 to 24 said they no longer saw “like a girl” as an insult after watching the ad. Two out of three men who watched it said they would think twice before using the phrase as an insult, according to the study. I think part of the reason the ad is so powerful is because it’s so simple – no script, just regular people being asked a simple question. While this isn’t something you would expect from a women’s products company, it was executed brilliantly and sparked a larger conversation which is what their marketing team was aiming for.

2. Budweiser – Lost Puppy

Good business people find a something that works and then they exploit it for all that it’s worth. Budweiser found out last year that puppies are awesome and since then they have been capitalizing on that fact. Once again, this is a sentimental ad and Budweiser nailed it. The people who rank these kinds of things ranked this ad the second best of the night, behind Always.

3. Chevy WIFI

While not a sentimental one, this was the first ad of the game and I can honestly say that like much of America, my heart nearly stopped when I thought my cable went out. I was hosting a party and all 11 heads turned to me with their mouths agape when the screen went black. Chevy did a great job of capitalizing on the big game atmosphere and how people would seriously freak out if their cable actually went out. This is a perfect example of advertisers using the fear tactic with a little bit of humor thrown in. Overall an excellent ad with great placement at the beginning of the game.