Theme Marketing: Copywriting Technique #127

One of the best-designed sales pieces I’ve received in years was a come-on for an MIT conference. Every panel implemented the metaphor of a deck of cards in both design and text. Bullets in the form of hearts, spades, diamonds and clubs and subheads like “This session provides you with all the aces you need” carried through the unified theme. After spending so much time exploring this piece, I figured the conference sessions would have something to teach me too, and I signed up.

Another marketing piece, from CM Communications, Inc. of Boston, landed in my files because of its clever use of a tailoring theme. Headed “Getting the Right Fit,” the three-panel brochure used a tape measure to illustrate subheads like “Don’t Hem Yourself In,” “Look for a Versatile Outfit,” “Button Down Costs” and “S, M or L?”

Well-executed themes get results in marketing because they reach beyond features and benefits to engage emotions as well as the intellect. In addition, they provide unity between words and graphics and thus become more memorable. Sometimes they involve a creative format too.

Cindy Marshall, of Jefferson, South Dakota, used the theme of a police suspect file in a promo piece for Media Concepts, in nearby Sioux City, Iowa. The manila file, complete with a real-looking coffee stain, opens to fingerprints, Polaroid crime-scene items and a profile including “caught guiding unsuspecting clients in specifying advertising goals” and “known to be armed with state-of-the- art equipment.”

To select an effective theme, stay away from any you’ve already seen implemented in your industry. Play an old parlor game to spur your imagination: If your product, service or business were a fruit, which one would it be? If it were a song, which one would it be? If it were a communication medium, which one would it be? How about a feature of the landscape, a type of weather, a dessert, a bank transaction?

Or, think about some general categories of phenomena that provide rich sources for themes: Nature; Technology; Hobbies; Relationships; Mythology; Popular Culture; Occupations; Common Problems. Sometimes a pun, such as in “A Hire Authority” for an employment firm, supplies an interesting metaphor you can build upon. Once you choose a tentative concept, brainstorm related ideas, such as for “shoot-out”: holster; OK Corral; bad guys; sheriff; Wild West; trigger-happy.

For maximum effect, a theme should be unexpected, such as “Setting Sail for Internet Profits” and yet sufficiently familiar so that visual elements like anchors and rudders and textual references to “catching the wind” and “calm seas” make instant sense. The theme should always be more concrete, picturable and commonplace than what you’re selling. Otherwise you will have created an unnecessary mystery instead of a compelling sales piece.

As with any marketing idea, test it out with people similar to your prospects to make sure it provokes a laugh or a nod instead of a “Huh?”

Bohol: A Bountiful Province of the Philippines

One of the Philippine provinces that travelers should consider if they want to have a memorable vacation is Bohol. This island province houses fascinating man made attractions and natural wonders like Loboc River, Chocolate Hills and the endemic and smallest primate in the world, the tarsier. Room accommodations and transfer services in Bohol are affordable so tourists will not have problems when it comes to their budget.

One of the island provinces in the Philippines, Bohol has fascinating and wonderful sceneries. Many people like to travel to this province to view its enticing beaches and majestic Chocolate hills. As of year 2000, there are 1, 137, 268 residents in this Visayan province. In addition, the average size of families or households in the island province is 5.41 people.

Boholano, the language that many residents of the province use, is one of Cebuano’s dialects. Even if many residents in this place speak Boholano, some people like to communicate with their relatives and friends using other languages like Tagalog, English and Chinese. In some minority areas such as Lundag and Taytay, schools teach students how to speak the old Boholoano Eskayan language.

Panglao Island and Tagbilaran City are two places in the province that attract many tourists because of their high-class and elegant beach resorts and hotels. Aside from the beaches and hotels, these places also have easy access to luring man made forests and alluring mangroves. On the other hand, many tourists also go to Carmen, Sagbayan and Batuan to see the popular Chocolate Hills.

The local government of Bohol prioritizes improvements in its education sector. The province has high literacy rate, which is 93 per cent. The advancements in the education sector happen with the help of outstanding schools and universities in the province like University of Bohol and Immaculate Heart of Mary Seminary.

Bohol holds annual festivals like Bohol Sandugo Festival, Bolibong King king, Pana-ad sa Loboc and Ubi Festival. Among all festivals in the province, the most popular is Bohol Sandugo Festival. Boholanos celebrate Blood Compact Commemoration or Sandugo Festival to honor the friendship between Spaniard Miguel Lopez de Legazpi and Datu Sikatuna.

Travelers can easily go to this province because there are air transportation companies that hold daily trips to Bohol such as Cebu Pacific and Asian Spirit. When it comes to lodging, travelers can make advance reservations at the famous hotels and inns in Bohol. Most of the hotels and lodges in the province have Web sites where travelers can make bookings.

With all the natural wonders and attractive tourist places in Bohol, this province is one of the best places that travelers must consider if they look for destinations where they will spend their vacation. The cost of traveling to Bohol is also not expensive so tourists will not have problems, because staying in this attractive Philippine province will definitely suit with their budget. Some of the inland resorts in Panglao even has packages with room and a motorbike for less than P1000 (close to $20 ) per night / day.

Guide to Chinese lucky figures

We enjoy Chinese restaurants whenever we can. We’ve dined Chinese in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco (of course), Hong Kong, Manila, Berlin, Hawaii, London, Dublin, Dallas and many, many other cities. Here in our desert home city, there are at least 25 of them, and we’ve sampled most. We visit one or two of our favorites at least once a week for a sit-down dinner or take-out.

We always look forward to the end of the meal when we can open our fortune cookies to see what happiness, good luck or good health will happen next in our lives. However, have you ever seen a fortune cookie that did not have a very positive message in it? For instance, did you crumble one and the words said, “As soon as you walk out of the restaurant, an outer-space asteroid will hit you smack dab on your head.”

Many lucky figures and symbols, other than fortune cookies, come from the ancient practice of feng shui (wind and water). Those who follow it believe that certain things in life and how they are displayed can bring all the good things in life through the movement of their energy. That was probably the origins of giving magical powers to certain items of clothing, jewelry, chairs, trees, mountains and just about anything else.

Understand? Neither did I, so maybe it was time to seek out expert advice. We asked our friend, a wise philosopher/bartender at a local Chinese restaurant to let us in on the secrets. Of course, we did sip a bit of Beijing wine before the discussion, so that we could take it seriously, if not soberly, and/or become rabid believers. Here are a few that survived the fog of the evening session.

Next time you bring in a large stack of bills from your mailbox, especially those that are final unpaid ones, just put them on a table and sprinkle a handful of Chinese coins on them. Those lucky symbols will give you the ability to get you out of debt. Oh, sure. If you believe that one, here’s another.

Put up a line of wind chimes outside your front door. Feng shui says their music will bring good spirits and block bad energy from entering. Further, be sure the chimes are made only of hollow bamboo, so that the whistling and tinkling music will guide the good spirits to you. Not to mention guide your angry neighbor to your door, complaining that your damned chimes are causing his dog to bark all night and his cat to miscarry.

Don’t bring white or blue flowers into your home, such as lilies, bluebonnets and carnations, because they represent death and misfortune. OK to display bright red flowers such as poppies and roses, because they bring happiness and good fortune. He didn’t mention yellow geraniums, because Notre Dame alumni must have been wearing them to football games this season. And you know about the kind of luck they’re bringing to the Fighting Irish.

Finally, everyone’s familiar with all the statues of smiling, chubby, squatting gods that show up in temples, tourist traps and Chinese restaurants. However, my friend said he had three favorite god statues, and for propriety, I’ve slightly altered their English spelling. Fouk is the god of love, Louk represents high esteem, and Sau gives long life.

He also instructed, should we buy images of those magical gods (he just happen to offer a special deal just for us at $45.99 each plus shipping from Shanghai) we had to follow a strict old Chinese custom to make them work for us. They should not be placed on the floor, or even at eye level. They must be higher than your head at all times. If you ever look down on them, all that good luck you’ve been getting will turn bad.

So, consider yourself warned.

Common SEO Mistakes

1. Over-using graphics instead of text.

Most search engines are not programmed to read graphics but instead look for text. Therefore, if you are too graphics-rich, you may be bypassed by the search engines. Especially try to stay away from large flash files as search engines do not like flash / graphics files.

2. Lack of Creativity in Keywords and Phrases.

If you are a small business selling digital cameras in Manila, Philippines you will include the word “digital cameras” as a keyword. However, that will lump you with Best Buy and all of the other major electronics stores and manufacturers who will still come up ahead of you in search results. Therefore, you need to be creative and think of words and/or phrases that might get you to come up more readily for your target customers. Perhaps “Manila Digital Cameras” since local shoppers will seek local businesses. Keep thinking and be creative.

3. Non Utilization of the Title Tag

How many times have you looked at a web site where the browser title reads “Welcome to [company name]’s web site” or simply “[Company Name]”? Nothing wrong with that, you say? Well if you want to achieve high search engine rankings, there’s PLENTY wrong with it.

While it may not be common knowledge amongst web designers, most search engines index the content of title tags and consider it to be one of the most important factors in their relevancy algorithm. What you place in your title can make or break your ranking for particular search terms on the various engines. If you don’t include your most important search phrases within your title tag, you are overlooking a vital opportunity in your quest for higher search rankings.

Having said this, you should try and keep your title tag to a maximum of 200 characters, as that is the average limit most search engines will truncate to. If you really insist on including your company name in your title and you’re willing to sacrifice good keyword real estate to do so, put it at the very end of the tag, because search engines give more relevancy “weight” to content at the start of your tag.

4. Poorly Designed Web sites

Ineffective site design includes lack of clear navigation, poorly designed frames, and large, load-intensive graphics. Search engine spiders can actually be blocked from crawling sites that are not well-designed, so it’s a major part of search engine optimization.

5. Using Automatic Submission Tools

In order to save time, many people use an automatic submission software or service to submit their sites to the major search engines. It is true that submitting your site manually to the search engines takes a lot of time and that an automatic submission tool can help you save a lot of time. However, the search engines don’t like automatic submission tools and may ignore your pages if you use them. In my opinion, the major search engines are simply too important for you not to spend the time to submit your site manually to them.

Poetry: Strength

submissive

object of men’s erotic desire

exotic love slave

lotus blossom

dragon lady of the orient

adorned in jewelry/pearls/jade/mystery

with golden fingertips (or should i say claws)

a prowling jungle cat ever so graceful

porcelain china doll

silky white/brown flesh

perfumed in jasmine

painted almond slits

delicate cherry lips

a face in a mail order catalog

manila girl

you’re a great way to fly

if you listen to my words

and

not your fantasies

you would come to know

my

strength

The history of spam

Yeah, I know spam today means unwanted internet messages. It was named by some ticked-off computer nerd in the 1980s, and has caught on in a big way as the bothersome misuse of email. But during most of the past 70 years, Spam has has been a more tangible item, a canned meat product remembered clearly and mostly unfondly by those of us who served in World War II.

In the late 1930s, the Hormel Meat Company concocted a product made up of chopped piggies, and it was dubbed Spiced Ham, then shortened to Spam. Some company old-timers insist the name Spam actually originally stood for Shoulder of Pork and Ham. World War II GIs had more graphic acronyms for the product, such as ham that flunked the Army physical.

Whatever its name’s origin, Spam reached its greatest fame when it was used extensively among the Armed Services all over the world. The negative reputation came from GIs who may have seen it served three times a day, and soon found its greasy smell and taste offensive. We also suspected that only the piggie’s oink was missing from a typical can of Spam, including hoofs, teeth, bones and tail.

I was a crewman aboard a troop ship in 1944-45, and our cooking staff prided itself in serving fresh food put aboard in Hawaii or the States to our 2,800 passengers, mostly Marines on their way to Iwo Jima or Okinawa.

However, once the Marines stormed ashore, in addition to Japanese guns, they found Spam waiting for them throughout their battles. The same was true during the critical battles in Europe during the same time, when the only Army food that could be brought to the troops in any large amounts was canned, including heavy shipments of Spam.

Spam served its purpose in feeding the millions of Americans who were in uniform during World War II. But instead of being appreciated, Spam became the butt of jokes. Most of gibes were about the unidentifiable ingredients and not-too-attractive taste. I wasn’t exposed to Spam very much during World War II until I was assigned six months of shore duty in Manila, and had to chow down daily with an Army combat unit. It didn’t take me long to realize what horrible stuff it was, and for most of that time I was a confirmed vegetarian.

However, Spam consumption is alive and well today, and sold in more than 40 countries worldwide. It is still sold extensively in the US, and is one of the most popular main meat dishes served in Hawaii. Restaurants offer all kinds of Spam dishes, prepared with native island food, including pineapples, macadamia nuts and other concoctions.

Now whenever I think of my experiences with the original Spam vs dealing with internet Spam, I think I prefer the tasteless and odorless email kind.

Travel destinations: Baguio, Philippines – Part 1

My favorite travel spots is Baguio City. It is so called as The City of Pine and also known as the summer capital of the Philippines. Why, because it has a unique environment that is relatively cooler by an average of 10- degrees celcius. It is the coolest compared to other areas in the country. It is likewise unique because of the abundance of the pine which is not very common in the country. As you get closer you that you are almost there because you can smell the pine trees.

As such, it has become a favorite destination for nature revelers and those that find lowland heat hard to take. Baguio boasts of 11 forest and watershed reservations covering an area of 521,233 hectares that helps the city maintain its climate and sometimes you can almost touch and feel the clouds in your face, be careful and dont stay late outside because in the evening you can not see anything but fog and clouds.

Whether for the intreped outdoor hiker or a the contemplative book-lover, Baguio offers a wealth of leisure and recreational activities. They have hiking and trekking. This place is a good place for hikers and outdoor enthusiasts because of some of its mountainous land area. You can carry with you a picnic baskets and blankets because this place is also ideal picnics. You will enjoy the place as you are viewing the scenic parks and offer the chance for a quite and tranquil afternoon getaway. You can shop till you drop. Do you know that Bagiuo City has earned a reputation as a mecca for bargain-hunters from all over the world? From furniture, clothes, handbags and jackets, strawberries, honeys, souveniers and everything in between. The best part is the prices are open to debate and nothing is fixed until the money changes hands.

Also the city and its park are perfect for jogging, running, skateboarding, and biking where the undulated slopes offer varying degrees of challenges and enthusiasts need not to worry about pollution or getting run over.

There are plenty of restaurants all over the place. They got american steak and potatoes meals,Italian pizza ad pastas, Chinese dishes , Japanese and Mongolian specialties and of course Filipino dishes. They have bakeries and pastry shop, you can buy homemade breads, native sweets and delicacies, cakes and the local blend strong, aromatic brewed coffee to warm the stomach. Not to mention fast food places with their ever popular burgers, fries, pizza, chicken, and sandwiches.

The City’s main attraction is still its natural bounty of cool climate, panoramic vistas, its pine forests and gererally its clean environs.

Surviving The Day Job Six Easy Lessons

Before I became a full-time writer, I had a job counting envelopes. Not colored envelopes or large manila envelopes, mind you, but white #10 envelopes. I had to count them in series of a hundred. Even now I can see them flashing in my eyes as I flipped through them, blinding myself as though I were looking out at a blanket of snow polished by the sun with dilated pupils. At the end of the day Id leave the office with spots in my eyes.1) I threw away the statement: Ill be happy when Sure I would have been happier if my coworker had stopped adding her pile to mine or I had left that place (screaming in terror) after only an hour of torture. But I needed the money so I fought to be happy about it. I made sure to put the money I earned to good use. Not only was I saving a large chunk for a rainy day and my eventual freedom, but I also traveled to places, bought books I needed (How to Work with People You Cant Stand was especially helpful) and attended writing workshops. Working with a purpose makes life easier. When you just work to survive, life can be very painful.3) I stayed away from the gossip mill. Its fun really. I love stories and gossips tell the best (of course I was also aware that they were talking about me, but oh well) unfortunately, they are a waste of energy. Gossiping about the crappy boss, social climbers, backstabbers and butt kissers is good time poorly spent. Yes, offices have a great cast of characters to talk about, but spending your lunch break complaining all day is not good for the spirit. Take a walk, listen to music, youre at your present job only temporarily and complaining about being there wont make you feel any better about yourself or your situation. Remember youre a temp – your future looks bright. Most of the gossips and complainers will still be there years later, older and more miserable. I know. Ive gone back. Its rather sad really.5) Come up with an escape plan. I dont believe in endless suffering. If you have an abusive boss or your job is giving your headaches and ulcers, Leave It. I dont care what kind of money youre making. Ask for a demotion or start looking in the Want Ads. No job is worth your health. I walked off one job that was completely demoralizing.Sometimes we have to do things we dont like, but they dont have to be an agony. I had many jobs that I couldnt stand, but I knew they were only temporary. Remember: This too shall pass, and your future looks bright.

Traveling on the cheap

Do really want to travel on a very cheap price overseas. Philippines is very good travel destination for you. Hundreds of tourist destination waiting and just waiting to be discovered. The Philippine island have hundreds of island you can choose from you can even buy an island for God sake!it have all kind of beaches you want to see.

Many of the tourist fell in love in the country’s natural beauty and decided to live their life in the country sides and beautiful island that are really peaceful and definitely stunningly beautiful. Hotel accommodation is cheap compare to others and and you can party all night to the beaches of Palawan in the Visayans region of the Philippines.Their are lots of service offered in the islands of the Philippines even medical tourism is promoted in a great deal and cheaper than others with professional taking care of you.That a bargain.

Worthwhile Travel Tips For People Traveling In The Philippines!

The country Philippines is a great country. It has many tourists’ spots and scenic beauties that everyone including Filipinos themselves would want to see. Being a third world country, it is not at all bad to visit the country. It holds the title of text capital because of cell phone mania where almost everyone has their cell phones and uses text as the primary mode of communication. Traveling to Philippines can be fun in its own way. All you need would be some knowledge about the country so that you will exactly know what to expect.



Blessed with stifling climate, it can be noticed that Philippines have three changing season throughout the year. We have the wet season around June to October which is heralded by rain showers, the cool and dry season around November to February which can be distinguished with the cold air and lastly the dry season around March to May which is what we call summer.



If you want to travel to the Philippines it is best that you go from around the third week of December up to the second week of May. You will find the climate very nice during these times. These are also peak seasons because of Christmas and Easter which makes the airlines busy. So you may want to book ahead of time to guarantee you a seat. The mentioned ideal times are also the times where big celebrations from the country are being held. You can have Dinagyang in January which is a colorful feat in Iloilo.



And that is just one of the many fiestas that you can see in the country especially if it is one of your itineraries. Island hopping could be one great event you want to do from Luzon to Mindanao. You can go to Pearl Farm Beach Resort in Southern Mindanao or Boracay beach resort in Western Visayas. If touring is only your agenda travel during the mentioned times and you are guaranteed you can have what you look for.



The nomadic rule would be to bring as little belongings as you can because this will reduce chances of unexpected events during your travel. Keep all your important documents and items in one handy bag and tuck it away in your hotel room. If there is anything you need, you can readily buy them upon arrival at the airport anyway so you do not really need to pack the whole wardrobe up. Besides you need space in your luggage so that if you want some souvenirs then you can squeeze it in when you are going to go back to your country. If you want you can have the map of the Philippines too.



Any relaxed variety of clothing will do when you are already in the Philippines. Ideally, not too thick and not to thin clothing would be good to wear. It is because of the climate that allows for flexible kind of garments. However, mostly you will need something that is comfortable enough for you to last during your stay.

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