Welcome to Brandsplat’s Five Things You Might Have Missed, where we dabble in online curation by calling out the week’s most fetching and far-fetched moments that just might have slipped right past you. Wouldn’t want that, right? Sit right down and you’ll hear a tale…

1.) A Simple Demand: Branded online video creation need not always be packed with special effects, catchy tunes or adorable animation in order to be memorable. Sometimes a powerful and timely message is enough. Demand a Plan to End Gun Violence, despite being packed with Hollywood A-listers like Conan O’Brien, Jamie Fox and Jennifer Aniston, is a simple PSA which demonstrates this point beautifully. A non-profit formed in response to the recent rash of deadly shootings in the United States, Demand a Plan created a video which does what any great campaign should do: speaks directly and honestly about something on the collective conscience.

2.) Kobe, Brief: “The antisocial has become social” and so began the newly-anointed Twitter career of Laker Kobe Bryant. Bryant has long been a holdout on the social network and his appearance is list-worthy indeed. Not because he’s another athlete joining Twitter, an occurrence that happens every 5 minutes, but because the hundreds of thousands that followed him during his first several hours on the site. Twitter marketing, especially for individual brands like Bryant, has never been bigger or more powerful.

3.) NMXcellence: Blogging conferences are a dime a dozen, but NMX, which happen this past week in Las Vegas, is noteworthy for the massive attendance and the serious coverage it received. Having nerd icons like Chris Hardwicke as keynote speakers certainly created a stir. But giving blogging, including blogging for business, center stage is what landed this function on our radar.

4.) Let the Poking Begin: After a few weeks of speculation, few would have predicted that Delta Lingerie would be the first brand to use Facebook Poke, the new mobile app which pushes out one-time only self-destructing branded messages. Delta used the spot to distribute a discount as well as a sexy but not too sexy video of a model getting dressed. Poke might finally just be the thing Facebook’s been searching for to bridge the gap between social and mobile.

5.) Cookie, Meet Rocky: Rounding out our list this week is a clever spot for Google Play that mixes things we love (Cookie Monster! The Rocky Theme!) with things we don’t love (exercise! New Year’s Resolutions!). The result is another charming Google ad that makes actually want to finally try Play. Mission accomplished, Cookie Monster!

Go inside a blip that caused mega nightmares for blog marketing specialists! See how one brand is trying to make scrapbooking cool again! And oh-so-much more in this week’s Five Things You Might Have Missed.

1.) 20 Years of Texting: This week SMS celebrated two decades of “OMG” and “K”. The first SMS (short message service) or text was sent in 1992 and it read simply, “Merry Christmas.” Since then, text messaging has exploded and opened the doors for mobile marketing. While some wonder if the SMS days are numbered, the anniversary tops our list for creating a platform that has truly changed the way we communicate and market.

2.) Tumblr Typhoon: If you conduct your company’s blog writing and blog creation primarily on Tumblr, then Monday was probably not your favorite day. In case you missed it (and be thankful if you did), a major worm knocked Tumblr out, causing the popular blogging platform to disable posting. Tumblr urged users to reset passwords while it got things ironed out. The culprit for this blogtastrophe? Tumblr’s re-blogging feature. The worm spread from post to post each time Tumblr users innocently re-blogged posts.

3.) The Scrapbook Comes Back: Leave it to the digital engagement masterminds at IKEA to make the scrapbook cool again. KLIPPBOK (which actually means scrapbook in Swedish) is an inventive iPad app which lets users clip things they like from IKEA (furniture, paint swatches, meatballs, etc.) and create endless decorating combinations. It’s a little bit Pinterest, a little bit old school and a lot of amazing. We’re thrilled to see companies like IKEA take tablet marketing and apps to a more imaginative level.

4.) For the birds: “What would happen if real birds used Twitter?” you ask. The creative folks at Voldemars Dudums advertising created this fun, time-killing video to find out. You’re welcome!

5.) Jason____: And finally, if you thought the guy who wrangled brands to pay him to wear their t-shirts couldn’t come up with a crazier marketing idea, you thought wrong. Jason Sadler announced last week that he was auctioning off his last name. For an entire year, Sadler will now change his last name to the highest bidding brand name. The winner? At $34,500, JLabAudio is the winning new last name… but Jason and his company, IWearYourShirt.com, score millions of dollars in free press coverage.

While researching a piece on online marketing, I stumbled across the Overly Attached Computer. This viral phenomenon is a Samsung ad that has been spun off from the ridiculously popular Overly Attached Girlfriend videos which racked up millions of views earlier this fall. At a mere two weeks old, Overly Attached Computer is already hovering in the 5 million views neighborhood. Why? The concept — a stalkerish computer played by new comedy star Laina who warns her owner to pay attention to her or else — is certainly ridiculous and not exactly sophisticated. But when it comes to digital engagement that really resonates, a new study says ridiculous is exactly what followers want.

A recent report put out by Forbes Insights and Turn called “The New Rules of Engagement: Measuring the Power of Social Currency” finds that funny might just equal money. When asked what makes them stop and notice an advertisement, 67 percent said simply “It’s funny.” Even 14 percent of marketing professionals (who should be above a cheap laugh) confessed that funny wins when it comes to ads they remember. Well-designed or eye-catching was No. 2 (50 percent) with consumers and No. 1 (49 percent) with ad execs. Thought-provoking ads (33 percent), emotionally-charged campaigns (19 percent) and ads forwarded by friends or family (19 percent) rounded out the list for consumers.

These results are interesting, even if they hold few surprises. Turns out our tastes haven’t evolved that much even if online marketing seems to change daily. Whether it’s websites, custom content, social media marketing campaigns or viral videos, we the people will remember it if it’s easy on the eyes and makes us laugh.

So, dear readers, I ask you: What’s the funniest online campaign you can remember from 2012? While we’re at it, tell us about a great-looking website or social media campaign, too. Educate us in the comments section below!

Today’s Crash Course in Content Marketing is all about making your content fascinating and fun to read. You can have a lovely-to-look-at blog or a newsletter that you send out to thousands of addresses, but if it isn’t any good, you’re pretty much dead in the water. We happen to think you can have it all: good-looking, well-distributed and substance-filled. So how do we give our content marketing depth, character and must-read qualities?

First of all, remember this: We may be “content marketing,” but what we shouldn’t be doing is selling. Or at the very least not pushing or hard-selling. Branded content doesn’t need to pummel followers over the head, screaming “PLEASE BUY ME!!!”-type messages. In fact, pushy, sales-driven content drives consumers and web traffic away from us and not toward us. Instead, teach your readers something. Introduce them to a video they’ve never seen, make them laugh during an article, outline some industry-insider tips in a blog post or create entertaining infographics. This “more flies with honey” theory works nearly every time with content marketing.

Secondly, much of enticing an audience in content marketing begins with dynamic, grab-you-by-the-throat headlines. There are literally thousands of blog posts on the Internet which claim to have the secret of writing these types of headlines. Read some — or all! — of them if you like. But know this: A headline that accurately describes your blog, email marketing efforts or article while managing to be entertaining or memorable is magical thing, indeed.

Yet it’s what’s beyond your terrific headline that separates content ninjas from mere mortals. Good content should be timely. Good content should be newsworthy on its own. But mainly, good content should have something to say. Fill your content with the things people are talking about in your industry while offering your own unique take. Use content to show off your services and products while talking about what is important to your organization. Essentially, let your content tell your story in a million different ways. Each article, blog post, podcast, what-have-you has the chance to show off your company’s substance and mission statement.

Tomorrow we wrap up our mini-cram session on content marketing with a chat about where to market all this meaty goodness!

So you’ve had that kind of week, huh? You know, the one where seemingly everything, including the latest social media marketing and digital branding news, has just slipped by you? Don’t worry about it! Our Five Things You Might Have Missed List will get you all caught up.

1.) Chicken Run: Certainly the social media branding story of the week — perhaps even the summer — was the hubbub over Chick-fil-A. You couldn’t tweet or log onto Facebook without reading the controversial comments from the fast food company’s COO Dan Cathy. Cathy said he and his organization were “guilty as charged” when it came to being “anti-gay.” So everybody online was buzzing about Chick-fil-A and a social media boycott was in full swing. How Chick-fil-A plays its next PR moves as this story developes will certainly be something to watch.

2.) Hold the Lettuce: Another viral story from the world of fast food came from Burger King this week. When pictures of employees sticking their feet in a tub of Burger King lettuce popped up online, BK rightfully flipped out. Posted on free-for-all site 4chan.org, the photo’s tag led the company to find the violators in a northeast Ohio franchise of the chain and they were fired immediately. Handled quickly and using all the proper channels, Burger King put out a fire that could easily have gotten out of control.

3.) Something Stuck in Your Teeth: This print campaign for Colgate, courtesy of Y&R Brazil, shows Photoshop disasters trumped by the power of good-looking people with stuff stuck in their teeth. Nevermind a missing ear or six fingers! That guy didn’t floss! It’s clever and memorable stuff — and heavily blogged about too.

4.) She’s the Mayer: Everybody, it seems, from TV’s talking heads and branded blogs to tech writers and politicians, had something to say about pregnant newly-anointed CEO of Yahoo! Marissa Mayer. Jaws dropped when she announced she would be working through her pregnancy and they continued to drop when rumors of a $500 million salary circulated. Whatever happens with the former Google employee, one thing is for sure: Mayer was a blogger’s dream come true this week, and for that we salute you.

5.) Mariachi Moments: And, finally, what better way to shake the blues away than a little Latin music? Doritos UK continues its viral video awesomeness with more mariachi covers of unlikely songs performed for some o.g. British gringos. This recently-released video for “Love Machine” should cure whatever ails you.

Twitter marketing meltdowns! Juicy blog writing plagiarism scandal! A dirty old broad selling beer! All of this and even more exclamation points in this week’s edition of the Five Things You Might Have Missed!

1. Gimme Pizza: Let’s Pizza, that mind-blowing fresh pizza vending machine with the gangbusters global viral video, is coming to America. News hit our shores this week that the miracle vending machine from A1 Concepts will be stateside later this year. OK, so Americans don’t need yet another way to get fat. But don’t pretend your inner 10-year-old isn’t excited to see this magic pizza maker in person.

2. The Lehrer of His Ways: Jonah Lehrer, the author of the bestselling book Imagine: How Creativity Works, committed a blogging blunder this week when he padded a post with previously-published content. The twist? Lehrer got busted for recycling content he’d written for last October’s Wall Street Journal in the June 12 edition of the New Yorker. By Tuesday afternoon, Lehrer had apologized and promised it wouldn’t happen again. It’s a 21st century blogging issue for sure and we doubt Lehrer is the first or last to “borrow” from himself.

3. Meet Ethel: Using a raunchy old lady to sell a microbrew from Brooklyn doesn’t sound like the world’s most original idea. And it’s not. What’s more, the company’s line of comedic hooey on how this grandma got into business is as believable as a conversation with Mrs. Butterworth. Still, we’ve gotta give Ethel’s Brew major props for great digital branding and kick ass online marketing. Since its debut earlier this month, Ethel’s Brew and its randy senior citizen spokeswoman have ignited Twitter, YouTube and Facebook, and beer bloggers can’t stop talking. Not bad for an 88-year-old.

4. #Donations: Politicians are just cuckoo about Twitter, so leave it to those crafty marketers to use it to get more donations! Politico reported this week that both sides of the election will be rolling out Twitter-based donation programs via the new startup Chirpify.

5. Redditors Do Right: We round out this week’s fivesome with a story of how one brutal video inspired Reddit users to chip in. The now-famous video, which features a school bus monitor being violently harassed by a student, prompted Redditor Max Sidorov to start a fundraising campaign via Indiegogo. Sidorov and his cyber buddies have raised more than $200,000, a gigantic amount more than the $5,000 goal to send the woman on a once-in-a-lifetime vacation. That’s social media marketing we can really get behind.

Google is the touchstone when it comes to brand engagement, online brand management and general world domination. The search engine mega-brand is often looked to by professors, sociologists and advertisers for clues as to what will happen next in world of online marketing and business. Yet for all of Google’s assets, beauty has never been one of them. Lady Google is useful — even beloved — but she isn’t cute. So when recently-anointed CEO Larry Page announced last week that the brand was going to get an image makeover, we wanted more details immediately.

Here’s what we learned: According to Silicon Valley’s top rag for tech dish, MercuryNews.com, the universal redesign will be the first in the company’s 13-year history. The sparse, organized look of Google+, which launched in June, will set the tone for how the rest of the facelift will go down. The same uncluttered look is slowly being integrated into Google products like Documents, Gmail, Calendar and Search.

“Our ultimate ambition is to transform the overall Google experience, making it beautifully simple, almost automagical, as we understand what you want and can deliver it instantly,” Page told Wall Street analysts in a pow wow last week. Clearly, Google is responding to consumers who are becoming more and more obsessed with sharp design.

Whenever a brand changes its “look,” there is always room for concern. Last month’s Facebook makeover and last year’s Gap logo disaster have shown us that when you change things up on consumers, they don’t always love it. But it’s high time for Google to mix it up and get a sleeker image. Readers, what do you think? Is now the hour for Google to go under the knife, or do think the company shouldn’t fix what isn’t broken? Tell us more in the comments section!

We’ve talked a lot about how newsletters can be a cool, content-rich way to spruce up your email marketing. And we here at Brandsplat love newsletters. So much so we even have one of our own and we’ve devoted this week’s list to 5 newsletter tricks, tips and innovations you might have missed!

1.) Grab ‘em with great headlines: There are some email newsletters you just have to open. We can’t resist ones that tease great deals, pimp new products or seduce us with scandal — all in the subject line. Using magnetic copy for our subject lines and headlines is a sure-fire way to get people to open our email newsletters… and maybe even read them!

2.) Tantalizing templates: Great newsletter copy is one thing, but let’s face it — we want it to look pretty, too. Thankfully, there are hundreds of cool, easy-to-load and even free newsletter templates. For the best, click here.

3.) Engage, not enrage: Most of us hate getting business-sponsored email. A recent study according to Mashable found that 91 percent of newsletter subscribers decide later they no longer want the emails. To help prevent this from happening, try giving readers something to respond to in each newsletter, like a trivia question, a contest or a survey that gives them a discount.

4.) Pass the buck: So maybe you’re not the email newsletter writer you thought you’d be. No biggie. Most companies have somebody else write and create these inbox goodies. And we happen to know of some geniuses who could help you.

5.) Get inspired: Not only are there plenty of newsletters that we love, but there a tons of blogs, traditional magazines, art books and more to provide us with ideas for newsletter magic. So get out there and become the newsletter star you were always meant to be!

Every so often, as readers of all things Internet and eternal blog scanners, we are lucky enough to run into a blog wherein the creator of the blog is writing about something they truly love. This is a revolutionary concept, as many blogs read as if the poor soul behind the laptop had a gun pointed to the back of his head while a person in a mask barked orders like, “Blog about Michelle Bachmann or else!” The point is maybe blogging about what we love can translate to more readers, better conversations with our audiences and endless inspiration for blog topics.

A clear case of a blogger in love with what they blog about is Annie from Annie’s Eats. This happy homemaker truly loves baking yumminess in the forms of pies, cakes, and everything you can possibly shove into an oven. Her blog sings with inspiration. And the reader finds themselves saying “ooh… I want to make those cupcakes” even if they’ve never made a cupcake before. While not all of us get to blog about universally-loved things like cupcakes, every writer has the opportunity to infuse his or her work with the passion and zeal that they personally have for life. When that passion is in your blog, readers can tell. Love for your blogging topic can manifest all sorts of wonderful things, from more links to book deals and beyond. Also, by blogging about what we love, there is little risk we’ll run out of things to say. When there is a passions for what we’re blogging about, the topics and inspiration just seem to come with little or no struggle.

In the end, blogs are creative works which require love, passion, interest, fire and thought. Leaving those things out of the equation leaves readers in the cold. So if you’re passionate about massage and your business, then by all means — the world needs a good massage blog and you should be the person to do it. Otherwise, somebody who isn’t passionate about massage could wind up writing blandly on the topic you are in love with and that would just be wrong.

If you need help writing a blog that people will fall in love with, we can help with that too!

It’s Friday… and, really, who actually wants to read something thought-provoking or analyze articles in-depth? Not us, that’s for sure! So we created a special all-awesome-video edition of five things you might have missed. Sit back and enjoy!

1.) Wearing Your Friends on Your Sleeve: We’re fairly confident you didn’t miss the Facebook tattoo story about a woman who allegedly had photos of her 152 friends tattooed on her arm. The whole thing was a big fat lie, and the tattoo in the video was a transfer that washes away in a few weeks. The compelling video, however (which you might have missed), proves that even a hoax can draw in millions of views on YouTube.

2.) The Beer Factory: This visually rad ad for Hahn Superdry is a step in the right direction for beer commercials. Hip and European with a tongue-in-cheek, masculine flair, the ad makes the list for being entertaining — something American beer ads haven’t been able to pull off lately.

3.) Listen to Your Cab Driver: TEDx came up with a smart way to have folks in Latin America listen to their idea-filled conferences: They invited taxi drivers in Buenos Aires to a conference then had the chatty cabbies spread the word as they picked up passengers. As usual, a TEDx video inspires us to watch, listen and learn.

4.) The Power of Clean Compels You: This parody of the Exorcist by Dirt Devil is flat-out the funniest thing we watched this week. You’re welcome.

5.) Don’t Try This at the Bar: Wild Turkey’s “Give ‘em the Bird” campaign makes our list not because of creativity or genius but because flipping off a bartender has to be the most ridiculous and perhaps dangerous suggestion we’ve seen a brand make in a while. Yes, people of the service industry, who already feel abused and unappreciated, will just love being given the finger by tacky whisky-swilling singles.