Public Relations & Social Marketing Insight

Talk about ambition: Reyka Vodka has decided to use Facebook Live to wish every single resident of Iceland Gleðilega hátíð, or "Happy holidays." 

Iceland isn't a big country, but it does count over 320,000 residents—making this quite a job for Frikki, the man who's been appointed to do it. Luckily, he's had help narrowing down the list, in a campaign created by Red Tettemer O'Connell + Partners."

Although there are over 320,000 people living in Iceland, the Icelandic Naming Committee has listed just 4,512 approved Icelandic names," says Frikki. "I will now read each name, wishing Gleðilega hátíð to each Icelander. Oh, and because Reyka is a vodka, these wishes are only for those of legal drinking age. So if I call your name and you are under 21, I am not talking to you."

In this video, he begins his laborious trudge through approved Icelandic names....

Host Whoopi Goldberg brought the funny all evening long at Wednesday's 55th Clio Awards in New York. But it was Jerry Seinfeld who brought down the house with a brilliant, hilarious speech about why he loves advertising—which ended up being a blistering anti-advertising rant that comically eviscerated the business.

"I love advertising because I love lying," Seinfeld began. And he only got more brutally honest from there....

Ever feel like real-time marketing is all about being first, and not about being good?

You're not alone.

John St., the Toronto agency that regularly produces scathing parody videos about the ad business, just released the hilarious video below about the breakneck pace of marketing today—and how every brand feels the need to react to real-time events within minutes.

As it did with Catvertising™, John St. is now pretending to be running a whole new dedicated unit called Reactvertising™, where it goes to absurd lengths to make sure its clients are clued into current events 24/7 and can react within seconds—indeed, knee-jerk-like—to breaking news....

Done well, content marketing is hard, challenging work. It’s no surprise then that three of today’s top content marketers include a former comedian, a successful journalist and an agency strategist. We sat down with Tim Washer of Cisco, Stephanie Losee of Dell and Stacy Minero of Twitter to hear their secrets to exceptional content.

Every brand should learn to be funny

Humor plays the same role in content marketing that it does in entertainment—it helps the company (essentially the content creators) stand out, get noticed and build an audience. From the audience standpoint, it makes the content interesting, easier to understand and overall more exciting.

If a brand can’t find humor, it is a perception problem. Brands can be funny, but they often don’t perceive themselves that way. In that case, the brands just aren’t looking at things the right way....