Looking for Print Buyers? They're Hiding in Plain Sight.

We used to have a special professional group call the Advertising Production Association of Los Angeles (APALA) where print buyers and print vendors would network and learn new things. Membership peaked at around 750 before falling victim to the 2008 economic crisis, high meeting location costs, changing priorities and dwindling membership.

Some vendors are gone, some print buyers changed careers completely, and no doubt, the economy and internet have forever changed the print industry. But print buyers are still out there, everywhere.

I was reminded of this just last week when I posted a job notice I heard about on the APALA LinkedIn Group page (now called APALA Alumni). There are currently over 475 members of this group, far more than were paid members of the actual APALA in its final years. I was immediately contacted by five people I never knew. There are over 23,000 Print Production professionals in the LA area alone!

Do you think you know who all the potential print buyers are? Do you know where they work?

I'm excited about a new business venture I have started since being a print buyer at Fox and NBC. I am using social media to help salespeople, particularly print salespeople, connect with their clients.

Your clients are here. You need to be here too. Please contact me at lynne@pinkyonthepulse.com so I can show you how to use social media effectively to your advantage.

Listen and Learn

I attended the thinkLA.org Mobile Breakfast this week in my continuing quest to keep on top of what 25 year-olds already know. 800 people attended, at least half of whom were under 30 and had excellent jobs at companies I never heard of.

The speakers were all brilliant, blazing through 100+ ppt slides in a flash. Mobile is huge! If you can develop a cheap smartphone for China, you'll be a gazillionaire (Apple will not be there). Speaking of gazillionaires, Activision can thank their 18-34 obsessed male demo for using mobile, social media and even print to make Call of Duty: Black OPS 2 sell $1billion in 5 days.

We're all using multiple devices throughout the day. Each has their own sweet spot and needs their own content. What Marshall McLuhan said in 1964 still rings true, "The Medium is the Message."

Beyond the ppt slides were two separate mentions of Amber Case, the "Cyborg Anthropologist." I looked up her TED talk and loved what she said. I've often heard of Social Media as "drinking from a firehose." Case made an analogy from I Love Lucy, and the famous chocolate conveyer belt scene. We just can never keep up with the flow! Her TED talk is worth the listen http://www.ted.com/talks/amber_case_we_are_all_cyborgs_now.html Her talk was more than two years ago, but I feel more "in the know" for having watched it.

Another reference was about Mary Meeker, the real Queen of "In the Know." Here's the link from speaker Henry Blodget's own Business Insider about her December 2012 presentation. http://www.businessinsider.com/mary-meeker-2012-internet-trends-year-end-update-2012-12?op=1

After the event, I checked on the live tweets. I admire those who can key in on a point and tweet without missing the next five key points. To my delight, I was busted by the guy sitting next to me who made the perfect observation for this event: http://instagram.com/p/XFgX4PLHge/ So much for trying to blend in! In my defense, I was taking notes for a guest blog I was writing.

So much to learn. Are you listening?

#thinkMobile  #Trends

Get Smart Phone?

I was just looking for an old image from the brilliant 1960s TV show "Get Smart" of Don Adams using his shoe phone. I Googled "Get Smart phone" images and these came up.

Don Adams as Maxwell Smart with his shoe phone

"Smart" phones

Could this mid-sixites television comedy featuring futuristic, high-tech spy gadgetry have planted the seed for our generation of "Smart" phones?

What other devices on "Get Smart" are part of our everyday lives now? I'll be attending the  thinkLA.org "Mobile Breakfast" on March 20 to find out what other trends are on the rise. Or maybe I should just watch a marathon of "Get Smart!"

#Smartphones #thinkLAMobile  #Trends

The Fairest of Them All

Let's hear it for the what is arguably the most successful print campaign of all time, Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit Issue! 

As Dina Spector reports in Business Insider, this issue has spawned a $1Billion empire, will go to 3 million subscribers and will sell more than 1 million copies on the newsstand. On The Today Show Matt Lauer said this issue will be viewed by over 62 million.
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sports-illustrated-swimsuit-issue-1-161000843.html

Last year SI offered the issue on four digital platforms including a tablet edition and iPhone app.
What a great opportunity for Time, Inc. and Sports Illustrated to evaluate the impact of print vs. digital with this property. Is there a spike in digital subscriptions as well? How does the viewer experience differ between print and digital?

All I know is I won't be seeing the digital version at my dentist's office. How do you measure the value of pass along readership to your advertisers in a digital format?

As for cover model Kate Upton, congrats on your second cover. It was worth the frostbite you suffered shooting in Antarctica!

Pop Culture and Social Media Success!

Two brilliant examples of pop culture and social media marketing happened this week which makes for a particularly happy PinkyonthePulse!

The Super Bowl is not only the biggest football game and advertising venue of the year, it's also the biggest social media event. We all get to be commentators via Facebook and Twitter. How many of you watched the game on a big screen and had your laptop and smartphone at hand? And a jumbo bag of potato chips? Maybe that was just me.

I admit, after the Calvin Klein Concept ad everything that followed was a blur until Beyoncé snapped me back to attention. She truly matched the mega-wattage exploding around her. The Twitter feed was equally dazzling.

Advertisers had instant feedback on how their dollars were spent. And then the power went out and one little tweet became the star. FOR FREE!

ChicagoBusiness.com reported:
"Power out?" Oreo posted to Twitter. "No problem. You can still dunk in the dark." The tweet was retweeted 10,000 times within one hour, according to AdAge, which noted that the Oreo graphic was "designed, captioned and approved within minutes."

Read more: http://www.chicagobusiness.com/article/20130206/BLOGS08/130209861/why-oreos-super-bowl-ad-went-viral#ixzz2KASrJIVC

Hasbro scored a Social Media success story by announcing their new Monopoly token "A Cat," which will eventually replace the retiring "Iron." Hasbro sparked huge votes on Monopoly's Facebook page which boasts more than 10 million likes. Counter campaigns to save other tokens were also launched. The cost for this huge buzz $0. Read more from CBS News here: http://cbsn.ws/XNGeVp

Lastly, you probably never knew his name, but you surely knew and loved his product:
André Cassagnes, Etch A Sketch Inventor, is Dead at 86.

How many of you spent hours like me, dialing in intricate patterns only to have a sibling "accidentally" jiggle it and erase your masterpiece?  http://nyti.ms/12nCH5P

Share your pop culture memories with us!

#LastPrintIssue

I'm trying not to take it personally. NEWSWEEK ended their 79 year run as the number two news magazine with their December 31, 2012 issue. Just because a magazine that has been around since 1933 has decided to go digital doesn't affect me, does it? Let me just take a moment to remove the dagger from my heart. 

Most of my career has been spent sending ad materials to magazines and newspapers. For many years we would ship huge packages with 20 sets of film (NRREU & PRRED) plugs progs and tops (a progressive proof run on a press to simulate what it would look like in the magazine before the ad ran.) That process took hours and several people to physically process the materials. All replaced by the touch of a button and a digital transmission in seconds to multiple printing plants.  

I spent most of the weekend watching back to back episodes of Downton Abbey. I had heard raves about it from several friends and finally jumped on the bandwagon. The BBC series depicts the cushy lifestyle of one British family in 1912 and the staff that serves them. It's all about the juxtaposition between rich and poor, old and older, tradition and change. Do I identify more with the Dowager Lady Crawley (fabulous Maggie Smith) who laments about any deviation from her youth or Lord Crawley (stoic Hugh Bonneville) desperately trying to keep up with the times while preserving the past. 

Change is inevitable no matter how hard we try to avoid it. "Change is good," we say. We really don't have much choice in the matter, do we? TIME marches on ; )

Oh, Sandy

Could we have ever imagined the amount of grief the name "Sandy" would bring us in 2012?

My mouth gapes open, my heart is in a vise, my throat catches, tears flow.

Widespread devastation along the east coast in late October wiped away entire communities leaving people homeless and businesses decimated. In an already terrible economic time, this blow by Mother Nature was especially cruel. Over 250 lives were lost. Sand and salt water took down steel and concrete. Memories of summer days "down the shore" washed away in an instant.

Hurricane Sandy damage can be fixed. It can be swept up, hauled away, rebuilt. Time and money can repair most of the material damage. It will never be the same for sure, but we can heal. In some cases things will even be better. A new "normal" will resume. I don't mean to trivialize the lives lost here. They are a significant loss. NYC Mayor Bloomberg and NJ Governor Christie should be commended for their swift action and warnings that surely saved a significant number of lives.

When I heard the news about Sandy Hook Elementary last Friday it literally took my breath away. What started as a mind-numbing breaking news story while watching "The Today Show" hit me like a sucker punch minutes later. I barely gave the news a second thought when it was first reported: a school shooting, the killer is reportedly dead, three injured. Fifteen minutes later a flash news update on my phone, 18 children dead. Before I could turn the TV back on, the count went to 27 dead including 20 children. Six heroic teachers who put themselves between the gunman and the kids.

NO! How can we wrap our minds around this tragedy and even begin to get back to "normal"? How can we remember all those names and keep them in our hearts? We may not know anyone personally affected by these deaths, yet we are rocked to our core because they were leading the lives WE lead. OUR kids in school, Our teachers, OUR community. Innocence lost.

What can we do to sweep up this tragedy and rebuild? Gun control and mental health care are starting points for discussion. These are polarizing issues and I don't like to argue.

Instead, I like the idea of practicing acts of kindness. We can't clean up this mess, but maybe we can make our new angels proud of us. Let's try.