It’s been a long time since I laughed out loud at a commercial on TV.  But this spot http://ow.ly/1T8v3 from Hornitos and (I think) Euro RSCG is wonderful.  What a great time it must have been in the concept room with practically NO restraints (because its alcohol and after 10 pm) and walk out with a great campaign: “Pure-er than you intentions”; thereby adding to the lore of tequila and its evil ways.  It’s brilliant because the campaign gets out in front of the tequila and its evil ways and says “Oh hell, since I am going to be bad (after I have this shot) than why not make it Hornitos?” Brilliant.  The "cougar" spot from above is really paid off by the editing, direction (camera angle) and acting.  Kudos to Zach Math and Cut +Run.  Incidentally the: 15 second spot is better than the: 30…why is that?

But the big kudos goes to the creative team for developing a campaign that can expand into print, internet and even social media.  ( I can’t wait to see the print add and the set up)

‘Purer than your intentions’, is pure creative as its intended.

No salt and no lime needed!

There is no other way to say it.  I got bamboozled.  I got slammed on to a list.  Oh, I had all the choices to back out and not accept but I wanted to see the full set up that was indoor, air conditioned and well… beautiful girls (that goes hand-in-hand with tobacco right?). 

OK, let me back up.  The Deep Ellum Arts Festival was one block from the agency and we decided to kick off and walk around early last Friday afternoon. Then we spot a Camel truck with a walk in promotion that is very nondescript other than the age requirement sign.  I should have known there was a problem when I was carded (I’m 44) and was asked to keep it out for when I get inside.  I was ushered over to a stand up table by a guy that looked exactly like Zack Brown.  And this guy was good! Boom.  He lit in to the schpeel while I’m looking around at the light trusses, green screen, girls in tight clothes and a posing section to get a photo with the girls.  (BTW, I know I’m getting old when I’m wondering why I got carded and they look like THEY need to be carded.) It was right then that it happen.  Zach–Brown-guy takes my drivers license and takes a picture of it for OCR purposes and WHAM!  There it is…..all my vitals on his computer and on a smoking list.  You see, I don’t smoke.  But that what he said was the ‘cool part’:  He was hawking a smokeless product called SNUS.  I mean that is a nasty name! Of course he pronounced it SNOOSE.  But whatever.  He was loading up boxes of the stuff while I confirmed the information was me.  At that point, I requested to see a privacy policy.  Well as you could guess, eyes got wide and I went through several ‘boss’ types but to no avail.  I even went a step further and gave out my email…yeah I know but wanted to see what they would do with it.  Because the promotion was what it was all about.  And it must have worked, because when I told a few smoking friends that they were giving away product, they rushed down before I could finish my sentence.   

I did however forgo the picture with the young girls to forever seal that bamboozle.  I’m not a complete idiot (I don’t think so at least).

Over the past few weeks several clients and friends have asked us why we invest in GEO niche domains and why we built hundreds of local based business directories.  http://www.tagteamcreative.com/domain-development.html

Those of us in the know (SEO) have been using highly ranked business directories as a lead generation tool and, more importantly, SEO for years.  The key here is the word: RELEVANT.  In the past it was just about throwing links out there to your site.  Not anymore.  Link building is definitely a part of our tactics but they need to be relevant to the key terms and key phrases that are relevant to your business.  Even better are relevant directories.  And even better than that?  Highly ranked directories!

Part of what we do for a client when we develop their SEO tacticals is to look for relevant directories that cost very little to post a profile.  Its time intensive but we have seen over the past 10 years a steady growth in the visits to our client sites and an increase of relevant leads.

These local based business directories are fantastic as they are full of paying (meaning: serious about their business) profiles.  Searchers get the benefit of an collection of relevant companies that they are searching for.  And that is better than Google and Bing due to the fact that those 5 to 10 companies WANT your business and it is not diluted by news twitter feeds and any other noise. 

Simply put:  Relevant local Business directories work! We look at the stats, see the leads and we get the calls. The rest is just qualifying them.   

Recently we have had a few questions from our clients about social media.  I thought I might share…

Client: What happens when companies have this unhappy customer’s that are vindictive and try to destroy them using social networking?  It seems like the ‘goods’ of social networking and tweeting can blow up in a companies face as well.

TagTeam:  We refer to that as Reputation Management. When an unhappy customer decides to vent – the company can actually remedy the situation via social networking much quicker than conventional ways. We have found that because of the transparency of social networking, ill will can be cured through immediate conversations. It’s all about a real time, honest approach. The good chatter always outweighs the bad. Your contact with the customer can be either direct person to person or posted for all to see. The latter adds strength to your company’s character to tackle the situation head on. You shouldn’t be worried about this. Just stay on top of it.


Client: How much ‘managing’ does it take if something like this is in place?  Is this something that I would have to stay on every day to answer questions, respond “tweet”, etc. I don’t want to set something up that I don’t have time to manage with the various plates that I spin.

TagTeam:  We recommend that companies tweet 2-3 times a day. Tweet interesting and relative content. Tweet too much and you will lose followers. You might want to have someone in the office take the helm and watch the tweets for you in case a customer service question pops up. You can set the account up so that you can have multiple administrators. Actual tweeting takes only a few minutes. Remember that you only have 140 characters. No novelettes! Per our discussion, you can tie your Twitter and Facebook accounts together and post once to show up in both places.


Client: From my time there yesterday, I can tell that this is a big expertise of yours and you utilize it very well.  If we were to do it on our site, we may want to start slow with what I see as the most popular of Twitter/Facebook and not go from a “smoke screen signal” to a “cell phone” overnight…if that makes sense.  (Or whatever you feel best but to go from nothing to the myriad of what you guys are involved in everyday would be mind altering.  J)

That about covers the opening part…..

DallasAdMan