The “Interest Graph”

Great information from Gary Vaynerchuk discussing content discovery and what’s known as the “interest graph” which is different than the social graph. The interest graph will be even more useful for businesses which is why the relatively new site, Pinterest, is exploding. Speaking of, are you on Pinterest yet? If so, follow me at http://pinterest.com/swfrost

Volkswagen Doesn’t Disappoint

Playing off their success from last year, this year’s ad is cute and includes a great twist at the end. Thumbs up!

Here They Come!

As a marketer, I look forward to this time of year.  Why? The Super Bowl.  More specifically, the Super Bowl Ads. With so much money being poured into these spots, they get better each year.  Sure, there are some that bomb (cough, Groupon), but for the most part, the agencies do a good job of making ads that not only sell products but that are entertaining as well.  Yesterday, Honda rolled out their ad featuring Matthew Broderick reprising his role as a Ferris Bueller (sort of) only instead of skipping school, this time he’s skipping work.  The ad has already gotten almost 3.5 million views on YouTube. Not bad. And, not to be outdone, Acura brought Jerry Seinfeld and Jay Leno together for a pretty funny ad about the new Acura NSX. Enjoy both ads below!

Happy Holidays

Digital Atlanta 2011

Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving!!

I’m finally getting around to summarizing my take on Digital Atlanta 2011 but first, I want to say thank you to all the volunteers who helped make the week a huge success. The track leaders were the rock stars this year. Each track is like a mini-conference. Planning the speakers, working out the logistics and then promoting each track is very time consuming and since none of us are paid for this, we’re doing it in our “free” time. None of us really has any “free” time but you get the idea. In addition to the track leaders, there were all the volunteers who helped check people in and provide support during each event. We couldn’t have done it without you guys so thank you!

Digital Atlanta isn’t a profit-making venture but there are hard costs associated with holding these events for things like equipment rental, venue costs, and other incidentals. Luckily, we were able to secure some last minute sponsorships which enabled us to offer most of the events at no cost to attendees. Our sponsors are our lifeline so we are very grateful to all of them. Unfortunately, we had to make the tough decision to cancel our Opening Night Gala at The Fox Theatre but we hope that by planning ahead and securing early sponsorships that we’ll be able to have this event for Digital Atlanta 2012.

We kicked off the week with a fantastic keynote delivered by native Atlantan and CEO of Fizz, Ted Wright. This followed a full day of great presentations at the AppNation Conference that was held over at Georgia Tech. I didn’t get to attend AppNation but I heard it was really good.

The rest of the week was filled with some fabulous tracks and evening events. One of my favorites that I was able to attend was the Sharpie Slam live art battle. That was definitely one of the highlights of the week.

We wrapped up with our Closing Party at Fado Irish Pub in Buckhead. Vitrue sponsored an ice luge for the event and it was so great just getting to hang out and meet all the people who had attended the events during the week.

Overall, the week ended up being a huge success and we’ve gotten some great feedback. We’re meeting this week to start Digital Atlanta 2012 planning and will be sending out a survey to get even more specific feedback about the events we ran during the week.

Again, a huge thank you to everyone involved! What a great week!