Out With the Old, In With the New: A Couch Story

I recently moved into a new apartment. Almost as soon as the lease was signed, I began to plan its interior design to the point that I considered pitching myself to HGTV for an interior design show because, you know, there really aren’t enough of those already. I’m only partially kidding. The only thing holding me back from this endeavor was the fact that I know next to nothing (and less) about interior design. That being said, I am convinced that my interior style, termed by others as “tacky” and “confusing” (thanks, Mom), will one day be “in”. This generation just isn’t ready to combine Moroccan with Country French, which, according to my aunt, is exactly what I’ve done in my apartment.

First on my list of things to get was a couch. The couch I had been using had been in my parents’ first home, before they gave it to an uncle, who passed it on to another relative, and so on. It was eventually bestowed upon my brother when he was in college. He gave it to my sister. She gave it to me. It spent its off years in storage units, in the depths of dark basements, and in the far corner of the garage with the rest of the junk, which we intend to eventually organize…eventually (when we get around to it). Always, however, the couch has managed to find its way into the heart (and seat, I guess) of a new owner.

Being the most recent inheritor of the couch, I found that I’d grown especially fond of it. Although I’d disguised its bright blue and green plaid upholstery with an ill-fitting slipcover, the equivalence of a paper bag for unsightly furniture, I've always appreciated its history. In a family without a specific heirloom (unless a sweet tooth counts), this couch seems to have lived and grown with my family from the very beginning. It is the couch that has been used in “first apartments” and “first homes”. Although seemingly a placeholder for a new and improved couch, it actually represents the start of something new, of new beginnings, of a new life. Not to mention the fact that the cushions have been worn down to perfection; it has never refused me the perfect nap, nor I it.

These clearly over-sentimental feelings for a couch caused me to be torn in the weeks before my move, when relatives and friends asked which couch I was taking. When I told them, reactions varied, if by “varied” I mean that everyone was really against it. They all feared what my new neighbors would think of me if they saw an old couch with a broken armrest; the word “weird” was thrown around a little too loosely. It took some convincing, and the promise of frozen yogurt, but after one trip to the furniture store, I decided to buy a new couch. It was beige, with a fun, colorful trim and came with a trendy ottoman, and don't even get me started on how fluffy the cushions were; I was too stubborn to admit it, but it was love at first sit.

The long-winded point that I’m trying to make is that sometimes, a lot of the time, change is good. My old couch worked for me. It was, in the most basic sense of the word, comfortable. The same can be said when marketing a business. You may use the school of thought “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, when what you should really be thinking is, “If it ain’t broke, fix it before it is.” This may sound like a cynical approach, but the truth is that things change quickly. What attracts people to your company one day could bore or even go unnoticed by them the next. My old couch, for instance, is the perfect exemplification of the past. It worked, sure, but, to be truthful, the cushions had been worn to near flatness, and the slipcover didn’t even fit, causing glimpses of faded plaid to peek through. I opted for change and embraced a new idea, and everything has been better because of it, especially naps (I mean, metaphors aside, I am still talking about a couch). Creativity, uniqueness, and ability to change are the triad to success.

That being said, even though I got a new couch, I didn’t set the other one on fire, or send it to a black hole in space, never to be seen again. I left it at my parents’ house, where it first began its journey, to come full circle in its life because, just like everything else, it has a cycle and may just reemerge again when the new stuff becomes outdated.



-Hayley Lyons

From Blackberry to iPhone

If five years ago you told me that touch screens were the next big thing, I never would have believed you. Even as touch screen cell phones were starting to become popular, I had zero interest. I figured they wouldn't work as well as buttons and the typing must be impossible. I was a die-hard Blackberry user and swore that I'd never use an iPhone... that didn't last long.

One by one, all of my friends got iPhones, and I began to count down the days until my contract was up. I couldn't wait to get an iPhone. As I switched from my beloved Blackberry to my new iPhone, I felt a little bit nostalgic. I had really loved my Blackberry. A few weeks later, I was addicted. I loved the big screen and the ease of my new iPhone. I loved all of the apps and I loved Siri.

I can't imagine using anything but my iPhone, and I am excited to see what the new iPhone 5 can do. The internet is swirling with rumors about what it will look like. So far it is rumored to have a bigger screen, thinner appearance, and a smaller dock connector. I'm hoping the new iPhone also has an improved Siri. Sales for the iPhone 4S are slowing, as Apple gets ready to release the iPhone 5. It's rumored that the new iPhone will be released in October. This is all rumor, of course, but until then, I will be anxiously awaiting the release of the new iPhone.

By:Lauren Menichella

Pinterest and Pins and Boards, Oh my!

One of my personal favorite social media sites is Pinterest. I have always been more of a visual learner; looking at pictures and writing things down has always made more sense to me. Pinterest appeals to this need because, after all, my favorite part of Facebook and Twitter are the pictures that other people post. With Pinterest, I am able to scroll through the "Pins" that the people I follow post and the "Pins" of the entire Pinterest community. I choose to follow other Pinterest users that have similar interests to me, so I want to look at their "Pins". Looking at these "Pins" gives me ideas that I can utilize in my real life, may it be for an outfit, a new recipe, a home design idea, or some sort of craft. Pinterest allows even the most uncreative person to feel creative. It can be addictive, and I could spend hours on this site. It acts like a virtual scrapbook for all of my favorite images. Each user's "Pins" are categorized into Boards. Boards can be as general or as specific as you want, and there is no limit to how many you can have. One of my boards is a "Style" Board, and I have used it to pick out my fall wardrobe, even though it is only July. Pinterest is also great if you are busy or on a budget. Pinners post a lot of workouts, quick and healthy recipes, and budget ideas. As a college student, I am always finding new money saving ideas on Pinterest. Unfortunately, whatever budgeting tricks I find stop applying after I've pinned a few outfit ideas.

I'll admit, Pinterest does appeal more to the female demographic, but it can also be useful to implement into your own business marketing plan. It can be a great place to showcase your own work without feeling intrusive to your audience. You get to interact with your audience by re-pinning from them, and they can re-pin from you. Also, all of your new "Pins" will show up on their home page, so will see your pins with little to no effort. One idea is to show "behind-the-scenes" at your business. Let your audience feel like they are a part of your community. This looks genuine, and customers feel a connection to you. Another good idea is to have a board dedicated to related topics. Show your follows, other topics, or products that they might be interested in. For example, if you are a pool retailer, have a board for pools toys or outdoor furniture.

Pinterest is invite-only, but they accept everyone. I suggest you check it out, regardless of what you plan to do with it. You just might learn something new.



By: Lauren Menichella

Yeah, Well, You Know, That's Just Your Opinion, Man

Recently, Oreo has made public their support for gay marriage with a Facebook post and photo of a rainbow stuffed Oreo cookie. The image and post got a huge response from Oreo followers, but not all of it was positive. While some people praised Oreo and Kraft Foods for coming forth and supporting same-sex marriage, others have stated their displeasure in Oreos views, even saying that they will never purchase Oreos again. Oreo isn’t the first company, or the last, I am sure, to make public their standing on same-sex marriage.

JC Penny came under attack back in May for running an ad that featured a lesbian couple with their kids. The attack was lead by the group One Million Moms, an online group dedicated to cleaning up “harmful media” that they feel is having a negative effect on children. OMM didn’t seem to faze JC Penny however, who recently ran a Father's Day campaign featuring a gay sex couple with their two kids.

Other companies such as KY Products and Gap have featured gay couples in their ads as well. Even the Green Lantern, a DC Comics super hero, has been re-released as a gay man. Is all this public support for gay rights good for business? Is that even the point?

During the months leading up to the vote on Amendment One in North Carolina, all of the big NC based firms, like Duke Energy or Bank of America, stayed silent about their views on the issue. It appears this was a good decision. Replacements Limited, a company based in Greensboro made large donations to the same-sex marriage cause, sold shirts in their stores, and sponsored a billboard on an interstate near their headquarters.

The result? Many orders were dropped, and the company received many negative emails, letters, and phone calls. It appears that in North Carolina the issue of same-sex marriage is still a topic that will earn you as many enemies as friends. It may be better to keep out of controversial topics, at least when it comes to increasing the bottom line in North Carolina.

If a company is willing to take losses for standing up for what they believe in, I guess more power to them. What I am more interested in is:

First, is the reaction people would have if Oreo (or some other brand) came out and supported that same sex marriage should remain illegal.

The second is how much a company can lose in supporting a controversial topic.

I am willing to guess that a person is more likely to stop purchasing Oreos because they do not like what Oreo stands for than one is to start purchasing them for the same reason. Those who strongly disagree with the brands views may decide to find a new type of cookie or perhaps start buying the knock off brand. I am certainly not going to start buying Oreos now because Oreos and I share similar views one marriage.

What is your take on a brand showing support for a controversial topic? Should companies make vocal their opinions, or is it better for business if they stay quiet? What would be the response be if Oreo had come out and stated that they didn’t support Gay marriage?

*The opinions of this article do not reflect those of the company, either way.*

Tech Dependence

Last week I tried to bring up an important email on my phone only to find that I couldn’t log into my email. My G-mail account had been hacked recently, forcing me to change my password quickly and without putting much thought into it. I had been using my old password for almost nine years now, a terrible habit, but I had grown comfortable with its familiarity. Now I stood outside my meeting, unable to access this important email, because I was unable to remember my new password.

Sure, I had written it down, but the sticky note on the bottom of my desk was no good to me, as I stood outside the conference, furiously typing in possible combinations of numbers and letters in a desperate attempt to break into my own account. I ended up going into the meeting without the numbers I wanted off my phone, and surprisingly enough the world didn’t end. The situation did get me thinking, however, about how dependent I had become on my computer and phone remembering things for me. I can’t even imagine the kind of wreck I would be if I were to lose my phone or computer and the data on them for good.

As the conveniences of modern technology have grown, my powers as a mental storage machine have begun to regress. Back in middle school, I had many phone numbers of friends and family memorized. Now I sometimes stumble when reciting my own phone number. Why waste brainpower remembering anything these days? Our cellphones save hundreds of contacts and our computers can automatically fill out our log-ins and passwords for us. This system of entering all my information at once and then forgetting about it has been very convenient up until now.

Last week's email debacle opened my eyes to just how easy it would be for me to lose years of collected data. With all the advancements in collecting, storing, and sharing information, how much of this data is going into our long-term memory and not just a bookmark folder on our desktop?

For me, it appears that most of what I think I know is reliant on a fully functioning phone or computer. Often, I find myself saving online news articles to read at a later date, only to delete them the next time I clean out my bookmark folder, the articles still unread. Technology has made it so easy to find and store information that I fear we spend more time searching than we do absorbing what we find.

Everyday we are bombarded with emails, text messages, conversations, commercials, television shows, new acquaintances, and news stories. All this information is coming at us in a constant torrent throughout the day, and we are expected to take it all, process it, store what we find important, and quickly move on to the next item of business. We have become so greedy by the stimulation of new information that we now even create and horde daily happenings on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest. It is no wonder I can’t remember a password I made up with only a day ago; it is buried under a pile of never ending information. I have grown too accustomed to having all this information and technology saved for me, data that I can lose with a simple hard drive crash or stolen phone. How easy it would be for me to lose all my music, emails, contacts, bookmarks, and passwords in an instant. Yes, I have everything saved on a back up drive, and cloud sharing systems are making this less of an issue, but just the thought of all the reliance I have put into technology is a little frightening. My inability to access my email, it seems, has shaken me awake from this digital dream, opened my eyes to just how much I could lose if something happened to my computer or phone.

Our ability to find and share information will only continue to improve in the years to come. Unfortunately, the unaltered human system cannot hope to contain all the data that we are able to access. It's important for us to develop ways to filter the constant stream of garbage that is thrown at us each and every day, storing it not only in our electronic devices, but also in our memory. I am not saying down with the machines, throw down your web-enabled devices, and go back to living in the woods; I just think it is a good idea for us all to slow down once in a while from our constant hording of information and actually absorb some knowledge.

By: Embra King

Creative Marketing is Effective Marketing

I recall reading an article about word-of-mouth marketing used in California. Movie studios were hiring attractive people and models to stand in public areas and crowds and discuss movies and how much they liked them. This marketing strategy works on many levels. For the point of this article it is both creative and effective because it is a fresh approach to breaking down the barriers of immunity to marketing that customers inherently have.

This form of marketing uses attractive people, as others will better value their opinion by wanting to associate with them as successful looking people. It is just a fact that the messages of good-looking people or people with power are more appealing and likely to take root. This was just a small aspect of the approach but worth mentioning.

The true power of this approach is what I am writing about here and the most effective part of this approach. By using this creative undercover marketing approach and having the message seem unintentional, the message takes deeper root. When you think the idea to listen to their conversation was yours, you better value the message. You may even find yourself repeating the message. You may later say to a friend, “I heard that movie was cool”, or “I heard the ending was amazing”. There is a good chance you don’t even mention or recall where you heard this fact, but you did. If this had been a radio ad or web ad, you would never repeat it. You just made this viral because you trusted the source. You trusted the source because you thought it to be a candid and honest conversation.

Would you have thought of this type of approach or calculated how its effect could go viral, due to the source being trusted over traditional advertising methods? All this leads back to why you need a creative and inventive approach to marketing. Working for CGR Creative, I have been exposed to many professionals with diverse backgrounds and real hands-on experience in trying what works and learning what doesn’t on our own time. You can be sure that you will be presented with ideas and approaches you would never have thought of. The marketing ideas you are handed will be tested and have a plan as to why they will outperform the traditional methods your competition is using.

My personal background is in SEO and online marketing. I didn’t attend a seminar or a 2 day course, I spent 9 years building websites for affiliate programs, ranking sites that depended on ranking to make an income stream. I spent 9 years needing to be successful to eat and pay the bills. I was constantly under fire to produce creative approaches to selling traditional products.

Now working with the staff at CGR with award winning graphic designers and community leaders in social and business circles, I am part of a team of like-minded, outside-the-box producers. CGR is a design team focusing on many fields and many different cultural target consumers. CGR's experience with their customers has led to one-of-a-kind creative marketing approaches for each and every project we undertake. A client needs a new approach to their marketing to accompany the traditional methods they expect. Use our graphic, print, media, and online approaches but, at the same time, let us bring your social and online PR presence up to modern standards with ideas your competition has never thought of.

Review Sites Creating A Problem

The good news is that review websites have provided a forum for customers and businesses to exchange and discuss their sales history working together. The bad news is that the intended use for review websites has completely failed. Review websites, like Google reviews, Yahoo, Yelp, YP, Mechantcircle, Superpages, YP, and others, may have had good intentions but have created a mess for small business.

I am certain the true intention of these review pages was the bottom lines of the sites that host them. If you can create an excuse to have a separate page for every single business on earth, you have just justified 1 billion new ads displaying revenue-generating pages for the review sites.

It may be argued that this is a win-win situation, since the reviews sites, like Yelp.com and YP, get to make huge gains in pages to display ads while businesses get free publicity. This would be nice if it was true.

The review sites have turned into a free for all of fake positive reviews and malicious competition targeting bad reviews. Here in Charlotte, we can easily point out examples of local businesses and services that spend hours every week attacking their competition with negative reviews. These review sites require nothing other than an email account to allow you to post high-ranking, anonymous attacks on your competition. The review sites themselves have no vested interest or financial connection to the validity of the reviews. Ad-displaying pages make the same revenue for these sites with accurate or fake reviews; there is no motivation for these sites to try and insure integrity.

The down side is that the only way this sort of phenomenon resolves itself is through becoming obsolete. Until these sites see less users counting on them and the revenue impacted, they will not change policies to protect businesses. Until that time comes, many of these have become an easily accessible medium for slandering competition and misleading customers. ME