Tuesday 14 December 2010

New Big Ten Logo - Worst Logo Change Ever?


When is the last time a corporation or other entity made a good choice when changing their logo? It's been quite some time...

The Big Ten Conference in college football is the latest entity to come up with a new logo which stinks on ice. It's so terrible that it looks like a high school graphic arts student designed it in 2 minutes, while under the influence of salvia.
Earlier this year, the geniuses at Gap attempted to bestow a new logo upon their brand only to fail miserably. The new logo was so poorly received that Gap supporters took to Facebook and other social networks to state their displeasure. A mutiny was underway and the suits at Gap realized the new logo wasn't just pathetic, it was an atrocity of mythical proportions. Within a week they went back to the old logo.
Already, college football fans and BigTen supporters are destroying the abominable new Big Ten logo. One has to wonder what their marketing department is inhaling over there. Just what is the point of having a "1" in place of the "I" in the logo? To quote the Double Rainbow guy, "What does this mean?" While there had to be some sort of logo adjustment or change due to Nebraska joining the Big Ten (thus making it 12 teams) this was a horrendous choice. Why not just modify the existing logo so it has a "12" integrated into it, rather than an "11?"
big ten new logoThe Big Ten's failed new logo is the latest example of just how out of touch the suits are in corporate America. They think they know more than the public because they went to Ivy League institutions or they have a masters in Marketing or Business Administration. 
The reality is many of these suits are out of touch with the public. The public hates change. When you have a logo that works, stick with it. People in America are fickle and like to be comfortable with something they've grown to like and trust.
Don't be surprised if the geniuses in the marketing department for the Big Ten Conference come to their senses in a week, much like the braintrust at Gap did.

Friday 10 December 2010

A Review of Steven Johnson’s Total Traffic Annihilation

If you’re looking for an in-depth treatment of free traffic generation methods then you should invest in Total Traffic Annihilation.  I recently had the opportunity to enjoy a preview of this course, and the eBook alone makes it worth your while—it contained 114 pages of focused, step-by-step methods that were presented as a total marketing plan.

I especially enjoyed the sections on blog comment marketing and forum marketing.  These sections really helped me understand the right way to use those tools and the strength of what they have to offer.  I’d avoided them in the past, feeling as though they were somewhat artificial, but Total Traffic Annihilation showed me they did not have to be.

While I’m not certain all 28 of the strategies presented in the eBook are good fits for my business I was impressed to have so many options to choose from.  Every one of the options was covered in a clear, understandable way that will make them easy for me to implement in the future.

The new software package also offers some exciting applications.  For example, it allows me to specify RSS feeds to pull content from.  It then automatically uses this content to create posts in the categories I specify.  I enjoy having a way to comb through article directories for this freely available content.  It even allows me to create a site that appears to have been around for awhile through the clever use of back-dating.  My site doesn’t look at all automated as a result, which I appreciate given most people’s opinions of automated blogs.

That’s not to say the course is perfect.  I found some of the information duplicated things I have tried and found ineffective in the past, such as submitting to directories like DMOZ.  I would have liked to have seen some more in-depth troubleshooting in this area because I’ve simply never found success there.  It may simply have been that my sites were a poor fit for the directories or because I was impatient.

All in all, however, I would happily recommend this course.  It should be especially helpful to anybody who has struggled with getting enough website traffic.  After all, no traffic means no sales, making this course the potential investment of a lifetime.

Click banner below to get your copy.