Author Archive - Mark Gascoigne

This time last year we hatched the idea of the Twelve Days of Social Media http://trampolinebranding.com/news/tip-12-embrace-change/ and had a lot of fun with it. Way back in 2009, very few of our clients had jumped on the social media band wagon. The jury was still out as to whether there was a business application for most organizations. Sure, if you need to rally a group of students organizing a demonstration against higher tuition you can’t argue the power of social media. But when it comes to sustainable marketing of most products or brand, is social media a legitimate tool.

Well, last December we got on our e-soap box and shouted YES! And a year later, we are very pleased to report that many of our clients have successfully incorporated social media tools into their advertising. In fact we are so impressed that later this week we are hosting our first (hopefully annual) Trampoline Social Media Awards. The twelve categories will be loosely based on our twelve tips from last year but will be taking many liberties as after all…it is our award show. Stay tuned.

I’ve been a pretty loyal BlackBerry user for the past 5 years. Admittedly my primary use for a ’smartphone’ has been e-mail and voice communication so I was not quite as curious about all the apps as I might have been. I did however have one complaint, I have gone through 3 BlackBerry’s with my last contract and was still having troubles. The troubles started over two years ago while my phone was under warranty. After some convincing on my part I was able to get BB to agree to send me a new phone. Once I got it I quickly realized it was a reconditioned phone but since it seemed to work OK I did not worry about it. Anyway, to keep this moving along (and BTW thanks for staying with me), I have sent 2 phones back in less than a year and my current BB has started to make the [...]

I’m a little embarrassed to be promoting an article from an August issue of a magazine but if Glee can build a franchise around nobody singers rehashing Journey and Queen hits week after week, I figure I’m safe. In last month’s Psychology Today http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201008/q-maverick-messenger (which BTW I recommend to anyone in the communications field) there is an interview with Seth Godin http://sethgodin.typepad.com/ (professional blogger, marketer and author) that has a lot of parallels with the business of branding. In the interview he states “I fail more often than almost everyone I know. I’m constantly creating ideas, and every day I put a new one out there”. He claims that the secret of his success is to see the opportunity, take the chance, fail fast (if you do) and move on. [...]

Everywhere you look, you can see people peering into their bitsy screen and fumbling over Thumbelina-size keys trying to stay connected to work, friends, children, partners… life. We’ve all seen them — stumbling down the sidewalk, steering with their knees or even holding on to a baby carriage while they type away, oblivious to the real world passing them by. Whether e-mailing, texting or SMSing their life away, they have chosen to unplug from the real world while they hook-up with their NBF who LOLs at every benign transmission from you or their 500 other BFFs. [...]

I had to get this down quick because I think we’ve reached a watershed moment. I must plead ignorance, yet again, about the whole city amalgamation since I did not live here when it happened. But all I know is that 10 years into it the only legacy that I see from this myopic spreadsheet vision is Peter Kelly, half-shoveled sidewalks and the no-name HRM. By this measure, even if you’re a PK fan, the experiment has been a colossal failure. [...]

Trampoline Branding is thrilled to announce a number of new additions and staff promotions. [...]

Trident Booksellers on Hollis St. makes the best coffee in the city, the province and quite possibly the country. Period. End of discussion. [...]

Can I be forgiven for not blogging about the ICE Awards last week? I had a bit of an ICE hangover … actually I’d like to re-tract that … I don’t think there is an ICE Hangover, just a regular hangover and a great feeling of pride. Sure, there are a few agencies with sour tastes in their mouths, as some other agencies took home more crystal than usual, but we all know the game. And as a good friend of mine always reminds me, “Don’t hate the player, hate the game.” [...]

We all know how great British ads are, right? So here we are at Ad:Tech London, perhaps the world’s largest conference and exchange of all things in the ‘new media’ space to see how they are tackling the convergence of advertising and technology. Along with the impressive list of conference speakers, there are hundreds of online companies here to present and promote the ‘next big thing’ for the word wide web. What is interesting is that there are two streams of attendees here this week. Free and paid. I know what your saying, I hope you’re smart enough to be going for free because it sure would suck to pay when others are going for free. Well, in fact, we paid, but bear with me — we did the right thing. [...]