Hi! I’m Ashton Honnor and I’m the newest mintern at the Pond. Having spent time with the Nebraska School Activities Association (NSAA), the College World Series of Omaha, Inc. (CWS), and the Nebraska Coaches Association, I am very excited to join the minnow PROJECT as an Account Services Intern!

I am currently a senior at Nebraska Wesleyan University majoring in Business Administration with minors in Sport Management and Marketing. I love taco salads, all things Nebraska, country music, and sports. Oh yeah, and the marketing nerd in me likes to pick out product placement in The Big Bang Theory.

While at the NSAA I had the distinct privilege of compiling, designing, and organizing the organization’s first annual report. I also conducted a ticket efficiency study comparing in-house ticketing verse online ticketing, which I am pleased to report that the NSAA is implementing today. For this baseball lover, interning with the College World Series was an absolute dream! Interacting with the players and coaches during the team autograph sessions and team dinner, answering the CWS hotline, working in the hospitality room, and watching baseball all day— what’s not to love? At the Nebraska Coaches Association I redesigned the Sportsmanship Award Program, which is being utilized for State Volleyball, State Basketball, and State Soccer.

So, what, you might ask, brought me to the Pond? As you can see, all of my prior experiences are sport related. I felt the need to expand my horizons and dive into the creative marketing and advertising world, and I found that opportunity here at the minnow PROJECT. This internship is going to be an incredible learning experience filled with many crazy new adventures, but with a great group of minnows to learn from, I am ready to tackle the challenge head on!

When I’m not at work or studying my life away, you will more than likely find me at a baseball game (Go Yankees!), working out, or hanging out with my friends and family. If you want to talk baseball, I’m your girl!

There you have it folks, that’s me in a nutshell. I look forward to my time with the minnow PROJECT and cannot wait to see what is thrown my way!

Until next time,

Ashton (fish name yet to be determined)

Some might say that social media is an ocean of rough waters, a beast that is hard to conquer, or as I say: that 500 pound mutating monster that’s more difficult to keep up with than a school of fish chasing after a worm tied to the back of a motor boat.  Needless to say, if you look at social media in that sort of light, social media can be detrimental to your health. However, if you look at it for what it is, you can be successful in making your brand or company more attractive to the digital society.

Social media used correctly can be extremely effective. Take a look at these statistics:

Oreo’s spur-of-the-moment blackout tweet:

This tweet was retweeted 15 thousand times, Oreo gained: Over 8,000 new Twitter followers, 20,000 Facebook likes, and 32,000 Instagram followers. Needless to say, reacting fast to situations can be extremely beneficial to your brand and its social media presence.

During the Super Bowl blackout there were 231,500 tweets/second.

After the Dodge “farmer” ad, farmer mentions on Facebook increased 1.8 million percent and after Taco Bell’s 30-second spot, their mentions increased %140,000 percent.

Okay so no everyone has a major brand to post with, but you can still use social media to your brand’s/company’s advantage. To effectively run your social media accounts you must do several key things:

Set a voice/tone. When posting on various platforms, (i.e. Twitter, Facebook, etc.) make sure you have a consistent tone. Do you want to come off as funny, witty, sarcastic, or professional? Just make sure that your voice is constant and that you are not confusing your followers by changing your company’s tonality on social media.

Decide what platform works best for you. Not all brands need a Twitter. Not all companies need a YouTube account.  Come to the conclusion of what social media platforms work best for you. If you have an older audience of 50+ statistics show that they are far less active on Twitter and more active on Facebook, so you may want to skip having a Twitter account and focus your efforts on Facebook. Does your company consistently produce videos? If not, you may not want to spend time creating a YouTube channel that has only one video over the course of 6 months. All in all, you want to spend your time where it’s most effective to you. Time is money after all.

Come up with an effective strategy. You don’t want to spend your time just throwing things out into the social media-verse with no planned strategy. You might as well just try to feed a cat lettuce. You can try to make it eat the lettuce, but you’ll be scratched up with the kiki running away from you in the end. You don’t want your audience to run away. You want to draw them in with interesting and creative content. Think about what your fans want to see. Do they want to see videos? Pictures? A witty joke? Do some research on your audience. If done effectively, they will interact with your brand in a way that you will love and will make you (your company’s social media guru) look like a genius.

I’ve given you a few beginners’ tips to running social media for your company or brand. Dive into the rough waters and you won’t regret it. Just remember your life jacket (i.e. the suggestions I have given you) and your social media presence just might float to smoother waters.

Advertising during the Oscars is carrying a higher price tag and is now the second most-expensive TV advertising opportunity, with a 30-second television spot going for between $1.65 million and $1.8 million.  In total, ABC will have brought in about $85 million in ad revenue, which is more than it has in over a decade, a pretty sweet chunk of change if you ask me.

So, how does this stack up to some other television spots?  The Grammy Awards had 30 second spots that cost as much as $900,000.  American Idol, the biggest regular live show, has ads that run higher than a half a million dollars.  The Super Bowl is the clear winner; with a 30 second spot running for as much as $3.8 million – that’s a lot of cash.

It is said that live events are more valuable to advertisers, which is apparent when looking at advertising costs.  More people want to watch it in real time and they watch to be part of the conversation on Twitter and Facebook.  Since most individuals are watching it live, they are not able to skip over the commercials – which is obviously very important to advertisers.  This year, ABC decided to be more involved with social media and attempted to start conversation.  On the red carpet, ABC asked viewers to tweet what they thought was in a mystery box by hash tagging “Oscar Mystery” – it ended up being the ruby red slippers from The Wizard of Oz.

With the rise of DVR and social media, advertisers are willing to spend more cash during live events.  They are aware that these will draw in more viewers, and more importantly, viewers who can’t fast-forward through the commercials they worked so hard on.

Speaking of movies, I will leave you with a quote from a favorite movie of mine (bonus points to anyone who can guess it correctly!)

“There are two kinds of people in this world – winners and losers.  Inside each and everyone of you, deep inside the core of your being is a winner waiting to be awakened and unleashed upon the world.”

Freya

So I wouldn’t necessarily call what I’m about to write about a campaign per se,  but a really good idea that is taking Volkswagen new places. I find Volkswagen’s Fun Theory website inspiring. As a company, Volkswagen is on the cutting edge of finding ways to make cars more affordable, better for the environment, but most importantly a better version of what the car is. This idea of making things better, is what Fun Theory is all about–taking speeding tickets and making them helpful, encouraging people to use the stairs just to be a little healthier, making throwing something away a little more rewarding, all using having fun as the motivator. To me, this perfectly represents what Volkswagen is all about, making things better and the idea that it doesn’t necessarily need to be a big production, just a website where good ideas are celebrated, makes it all the more prevalent. In a nutshell, why this is my favorite campaign is simple; it’s a good idea, celebrating good ideas, while moving the world forward just as the company wants to do. A smart man once told me, keep it simple, stupid–and I have tried to live by that mantra through my entire creative career.  Volkswagen’s Fun Theory is the perfect example of that.

So go check it out, maybe tell them about a simple idea that embodies Volkswagen and fun.

http://www.thefuntheory.com/

Later, gators!

Wahoo

Online viral videos are a craze and will continue to be until people stop coming up with crazy new hilarious ideas. That being said…you love these videos, hate these videos, despise these videos (as they continually spam your Facebook news feed) and laugh at these videos. This past week at the pond we began Lincoln’s new exciting fad: “The Harlem Shake”.

You can take a look at the minnow PROJECT’s amazing moves here:

There is a lot more work that goes into videos like this. It may seem like a simple one-shot two-scene video, but that doesn’t take into account the planning that is necessary for such a feat. So I’m going to dive deep into the intangibles of creating an online sensation such as The Harlem Shake.

First, you need a willing group of people. Here at the minnow PROJECT it doesn’t take much to get us to volunteer to get crunk for fun. So we harnessed that energy into a 30 second video. So if you have one, two, three, four, or five, or even 20 people willing, gather them together and begin your planning.

Next, you need props. As you can see in our Harlem Shake video, many props are used. Laptops, nets, life jackets, giant cutouts of sheep, mini-bikes, and masks are what you can see in the minnow’s video. Though you may not have a mini-bike or giant cutout of a sheep, THAT’S OKAY! Grab the next best thing…a plant in a pot, a pillow, a rock, a kitten, your newborn son…okay maybe not your newborn son, but you get the picture. Anything can be hilarious while putting it into a snazzy 30- second video.

After gathering your props you need to come up with some dance moves. I know you’re probably thinking, “I look like a three-headed squid named Ursula when I try to dance…” That’s okay…because the way you move doesn’t matter as long as you are doing something super awkward or weird.

Take a look at the minnow’s video: let’s break down the dance moves you can take from this: 1. Lying down. As you can see, I am lying down with my prop and flailing it through the air. Simple enough right? 2. Dancing on the tabletops. The Wahoo is getting down on the table. Though you may not be able to match his awesome dance moves, you can come up with your own. And 3. Go crazy with your prop. The rest of the minnows are literally ‘making love’ to their props. Go crazy with them! Do anything! Dance! Flail! Run around in circles for all I care, but you need to be making that prop go crazy like minnows when they’re served Sump on Tuesdays!

Besides putting the video together after filming, you now know what to do to put together your very own Harlem Shake. We don’t recommend trying to be as awesome as us. Here at the pond, we’re on taking on big water.

King Mackerel out.

Super Bowl Sunday was filled with football (including a power outage), entertaining commercials, and of course…Beyoncé.  Not going to lie, I turned my volume up a little too loud as soon as she stepped on stage. Beyoncé is my all time favorite celebrity and I’m not ashamed to admit that I spend my free time watching her interviews.

After a spectacular performance, Beyoncé took to YouTube to announce plans for her upcoming world tour.  Some celebrities stick to announcing their tours on their websites alone; however, I believe that Beyoncé’s idea of using social media was incredibly smart.  Not to mention, a video is a lot more entertaining to watch than reading words on a screen.

According to YouTube statistics, 4 billion video views are seen on YouTube globally every day, and 70% of YouTube traffic comes from outside the United States.  Not only is that a lot of videos watched, but the majority of viewers are from a different country.  Beyoncé’s world tour announcement needed to reach all over the world, and that it did.

Beyoncé also mentioned her world tour on her Facebook page – which has over 42 million likes.  Facebook is currently the top social media site when looking at daily active users, however, more and more people are starting to migrate towards Twitter as well.  One suggestion I would make is that Beyoncé should be utilizing her Twitter more – she has only tweeted a total of four times, the last one being August 19^th.

Social media is playing a bigger role in our society than it has in the past, if used wisely these platforms can help reach your target audience a lot better than any other medium.

To watch the teaser for her world tour, click here.

Until next time,

Freya

By now you should know that here at the minnow PROJECT we really enjoy our ads, and this Sunday, the best of the best (or the most expensive of the most expensive) will appear on screen in front of 111.3 million people who are watching the Super Bowl. However, I am here to claim that all of these advertisers are truly in the wrong place.

Yes, I know I’m just an intern, but hear me out when I say one of the future hotspots for Super Bowl ads could quite possibly be the Puppy Bowl. Yes, the Puppy Bowl.  An event with such magnitude, and such cuteness – it’s hard not to watch. I’m talking about golden retriever and lab puppies fighting over toys like it’s their job and corgis galloping along on their short legs as they go for the goal. Let’s just say if there’s something to stay tuned to, it involves water bowl cams and wagging tales.

To all the ad pros out there, don’t get me wrong: Advertising during the Puppy Bowl may not have the extensive reach as it does during the actual Super Bowl. However, your client wouldn’t be spending $3.8 million on ad space alone. The Puppy Bowl is quickly gaining traction and could potentially be a cheaper alternative that still has substantial viewership. According to the Humane Society of America, 78.2 million people in the U.S. alone own one to two dogs. Similarly, an interesting post in Wikipedia states:

“Puppy Bowl VIII aired on February 5, 2012. This airing was the second most-watched social television program in America, with more than 10 million viewers over five airings. This included an increase of 17 percent in ratings in its target demographic group (adults age 25-to-54). More than 200,000 Puppy Bowl-related tweets were made on that day.

Advertising revenue for the 2013 show is up 19 percent over 2012, and has drawn a number of new advertisers. For the first time, Animal Planet has allowed commercial branding of its ‘stadium.’ It will be referred to throughout the program as the ‘Geico Puppy Bowl Stadium.’”

In my professional opinion as a puppy lover and ad student, it’s only a matter of time until advertisers decide that the Puppy Bowl is the new location to start a major ad campaign. With football rules getting tougher and the hits getting softer, the game is changing, and I’m not sure the American public can throw a flag on an English bulldog scoring the winning TD.

Look out, world. Here comes the Puppy Bowl, take heed.

Wahoo

Tiny.

That’s how I would describe how a little Mintern feels entering the raging creative waters of the pond known as the minnow PROJECT. Although as minnows we are small, we can create big waves. I am still exploring the waters, even waiting to be named as a Mintern! The suspense is killing me.

I do have a different name however. It’s Colby Dolan.  Minden, Nebraska is my hometown, where I used to be called a Whippet instead of a minnow, but I’ve never been prouder to be from a small central Nebraskan town.

As a Mintern I am constantly on the go. However, I do make time for the things I love to do outside the waters of the pond. Currently I’m training for the Lincoln half-marathon. This will be my third race! I am taking suggestions for a costume this year, as the superman costume didn’t work out so well last time. Another few favorites of this Mintern are BBQ, Ford Mustangs, anything Apple, horror films, and flying. If you present any one of the things mentioned above to me, I will be swimming there faster than you can say, “Just keep swimming.”

I’m also a senior at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. UNL hasn’t always been my college of choice though. I used to come from the much smaller pond, that is to say Hastings College. At Hastings I was sure what I wanted to do until one of my mentors, Kathy Stofer, encouraged me to attend Ad Camp here in Lincoln. The next two years I attended and was hooked on advertising…no broadcasting…er…advertising…and so I decided to transfer to UNL where I could become a double major in Advertising and Broadcasting.

Next December I’ll be entering the large ocean of big fishy jobs. I know my experiences in the Pond will help me swim with the best. You’ll continue to hear about my adventures in the exciting waters of the Pond. Until then…just keep swimming!

Hello there!  My name is Freya Tegland and I am one of the newest Minterns here at the minnow PROJECT.  I am currently a senior Advertising and PR major at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, with minors in English and Sociology.  I will finally be graduating next December (which I’m sure my parents are excited about).

I got into advertising because I am fascinated by commercials.  Call me crazy, but I don’t feel compelled to fast forward through them, which may be why no one likes watching T.V. with me. Personally, I believe that the Volkswagen commercial where the little boy is dressed up as Darth Vader is the best thing ever.  However, I may be partial because I love Volkswagens.  My family has an old Volkswagen camper van that we took all over the United States when I was a kid.  To be honest, it kind of resembles a Twinkie, but that’s what makes it so awesome.

(Link to commercial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n6hf3adNqk)

I should probably tell you a few random things that make me, well me…

(1)  My passion lies in the account side of things; Google is my best friend – but seriously it is
(2)  I believe that The Beatles are the best band of all time
(3)  Freya is the Norwegian goddess of love and beauty – I make sure to tell people this when I first meet them
(4)  One day I will have a bulldog puppy and I will teach him/her how to skateboard (you can’t tell me that this isn’t adorable: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XabRyNKwThI)
(5)  I am probably overly obsessed with gummy bears – they are the key to my heart
(6)  As embarrassing as it is, I still know all of the words to every single Spice Girls song

I am certain that this internship will be one of the biggest learning opportunities I’ve had so far.  Surprisingly, I’m even looking forward to doing the typical internship tasks, like getting coffee and doing the dishes when they’re thrown my way.  For some reason I feel that that’s something every intern should experience, me being no exception.  I’m ready to take the plunge into the Pond and see what adventures lie ahead.

Until next time,

Freya (fish name pending)

Hey all! My Name is Matt Anderson, or as the Marlin recently named me, Wahoo. Really anything works, but I’m the new Mintern here at the minnow PROJECT and I’m new to writing for Tales (shoot, I’m even new to having a tail in some regards!).

I guess I better tell you all a little about myself, so let’s start at the beginning. I’m a senior Advertising and Public Relations major at the University of Nebraska – Lincoln and will quickly be on my way to the big boy world in May. I recently found out that my personality is rather easy to explain after a friend told me that I was “a perfect combination between a twelve year old and a senior citizen.” I realized that’s pretty much it. I’m a designer but I don’t always fit the mold; I like to go to bed at 10pm, making me a morning person, and I love sending professional emails that always end in stupid movie quotes.

Having recently completed an internship at another local agency, I was excited when I received the opportunity to gain further experience from minnow that would help build my portfolio and make it into better bait, so to speak. I’ve only been in the waters here for about four weeks, and am already allowed to work on logos, websites and collateral, and I can’t complain at all. That’s the stuff I was excited to work on in the real world and now I get to start practicing and honing my craft, as a student. I’m so excited to have an opportunity at the minnow to further my skills, help me grow as a person and a designer and finally truly find my place as a fish in the big ocean of advertising (yeah, it’s punny around here).

In the words of Steve Zissou,

“Don’t point that gun at him, he’s an unpaid intern.”

Mintern Wahoo aka Matt