Mike Templeton

Tonight I finally got to the local movie theatre to catch the new Iron Man flick, the #1 movie in America. I’ve been hearing about it through my #dmtweetup friends and it was killing me to have waited this long.

First off, I was very impressed, though I won’t reveal any plot lines for those who haven’t seen it. The action was great, the special effects seamless and glossy and the post-credits teaser tantalizing. But what I really want to talk about is the product placement.

Lots of blogs have covered the big Iron Man/Audi tie-in, though Variety gives some great details.

The deal [between Marvel and Audi] calls for the R8, the upcoming S5 sports coupe, the A6 sedan and the Q7 SUV.

Audi will likely pony up tens of millions of dollars to help promote the movie worldwide.

Audi is looking to up its presence in the U.S., and is relying on high-profile film placements and tie-ins to make its four-ringed logo stand out.

“Iron Man” will be the first major movie tie-in for Audi since Fox’s 2004 sci-fier “I, Robot.”

So Audi is spending millions of dollars to promote its high-end, $35K+ cars and is counting on that to drive sales at the dealership? It seems a bit far-fetched (as does advertising a $108,000 car to a Super Bowl audience), but the only people who will know if all the promotions are worthwhile are the marketers and accountants at Audi watching sales numbers.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the ads and all the promos they are doing, but it just makes me wonder if its really going to pay off. For me, I picture the average Audi owner as a successful, 35-45 year old business person with cash to burn and a taste for luxury. The average person interested and excited about seeing Iron Man in theatres is a 18-25 year old guy with a love for comic books, hardly someone who will end up cruising out to the Audi dealership and laying down some serious coin on a car worth 3x their yearly salary.

What those comic book lovers would probably be more interested in was the plugs that Burger King got in the movie as “the American cheeseburger,” a sure blow to McDonald’s ego.

Another thing Variety mentions that gets me a bit more excited is the design consideration for Tony Stark’s car (the R8) and how they felt that it really fit with the character’s personality. This to me says that the folks at Marvel actually put some thought behind their choice and didn’t just award the car contract to the company with the highest bid.

The R8 hooked filmmakers in part because elements of the car’s design closely resemble Iron Man’s superhero garb. The car features an engine housing in the rear of the car that glows at night, mimicking the glowing chestplate Stark must wear to stay alive. The design of the R8’s headlights also resemble the eye slits of Iron Man’s helmet and light up in similar fashion.

Being a German car fan and especially a VW fanatic (VW owns Audi), I am happy to see them doing more in the US market. Maybe Audi’s deal with Marvel Studios will generate more awareness and consideration at the dealership…or maybe it won’t.

There’s a few things you can be sure of though:

1. None of us will experience the raw awesomeness of being Iron Man.
2. Most will never own or drive his equally awesome R8.

The wife and I made a trip to NYC recently and amongst all the flashing lights and giant signage, one billboard stood out from the rest. The billboard I’m talking about, seen below, is from the CW’s show Gossip Girl. The ad depicts two of the main characters in a provocative setting with four bold letters, OMFG.

If you’re not familiar with Internet slang, here’s a definition of OMFG from the Wiktionary. The campaign was designed to promote the return of original episodes on April 21 after the show went dry due to the writers strike.

Religious groups in the US, along with the Parents Television Council, are taking offense at the campaign and speaking out against it. News stations like CNN are reporting on it like mad trying to make something out of nothing.

In my opinion, it was a bold move for CW to use something so over the top, but at the same time it ties in perfectly with the demographic they are trying to reach (its core audience of 12-24-year-olds, which is down an alarming 38%). When they are dealing with a show that barely averages 2 million viewers a week in a country of 300 million, something has to be done to spark the fire.

Bill Brioux from TV Feeds My Family mentions that in repeat shows of GG during the week of April 7-13, GG ranked 12th among CW shows. No statistics yet (that I’ve seen) on how those numbers may have changed as a result of this campaign, but I’ll update if I do find something.

In the end, the campaign doesn’t bother me at all, but it did grab my attention and that of many others. Props to CW for garnering that attention. And as for those upset by the ads, please just let it pass or work harder with your own children. CW doesn’t need to pull their ads or be punished for what they’ve done. That’s what this country is all about and I hate to see people making choices and decisions without input from everyone else.

[Picture from TV Feeds My Family]

Up until recently I was much of a networking hermit. I’d heard about all the advantages of joining clubs and special interest groups in college, but I never took the plunge. I just didn’t see the value. Now things seem to have changed.

In the past several months I’ve participated in more networking groups and activities than in my entire college career:

• #dmtweetup - local Twitter users who meet irregularly and talk about technology, social media and the like
• Central Iowa Bloggers - Des Moines-based group of bloggers that meet the first Friday of every month to discuss happenings in the blog community, etc.
• Company of Friends - group of readers of “Fast Company” magazine and similar media; meet once per month to discuss articles
• IowaBiz.com Business Building Breakfast - panel of bloggers share their knowledge and expertise with IowaBiz subscribers and community
• dsmBUZZ - grassroots initiative that exists to promote the efforts of locally owned businesses in central Iowa
• AMA Iowa - group of marketing professionals dedicated to advancing the theory and practice of marketing

Though it seems as if my calendar can’t allow for one more event, these days I make time to schedule in opportunities like these.

Maybe my brain was so consumed by schoolwork while in college I just couldn’t grasp the inherent benefits of groups such as these. Now that I’m out in the free world, however, I realize that the connections and contacts I make at these functions are invaluable.

Also, if you’re looking for a good way to organize your schedule in a format that’s easy to access and manage, check out Google Calendar. I just set mine up today for the first time and it’s proving to be wonderful.

The title of this post pays tribute to Tom Foremski’s post on SiliconValleyWatcher, a topic I’ll dig into another time.

As part of my own guidelines around websites, domain names and email addresses, you can never have too many. Having several domain names helps to protect your livelihood and your brand on the web, while having multiple email addresses to tie to those domains builds trust amongst your recipients. But what happens when you try to manage it all? Chaos. Ands lots of hair-pulling.

Before I finish this story, let’s start with how it begins. Earlier this week I Tweeted to my Twitter followers looking for a reliable, all-encompassing, web-based email client. My criteria was that the interface needed to be user-friendly, it HAD to be accessible from anywhere with an internet connection and it had to be able to handle lots of different email addresses effectively. And why was I looking for such an interface when I have Microsoft Outlook? BECAUSE.

The solution to my problem was suggested by @webboy, a local Des Moines Tweep I’ve met through the DM TweetUp events, and it was Google Apps. Google explains that Google Apps for your domain (GAFYD) bundles several “applications including Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar and Google Docs.” If you own your own domain, you can sign up for the FREE version of GAFYD and create a central organizing point for your business, school or organization.

I filled out my details and went to work right away with my Dosovo domain. After firing up the GAFYD version of Gmail, all I had to do was load my various POP3 email accounts and I was up in running in under 15 minutes.

The process went very smoothly and I’d recommend Google’s GAFYD product to anyone looking to consolidate their mess of email addresses into an easy-to-use, web-based client.

In addition to consolidating multiple email addresses into one central space online, GAFYD helps mobilize all of those old emails sitting in Outlook on your machine AND makes them searchable with Gmail’s inbox search feature (which blows Outlook Inbox search out of the water). What more could you ask for?

For more on GAFYD, check out the Technorati tag and Zoli’s Blog (which I used as a step-by-step guide for loading my archived mail into Gmail.)