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Trying to bring people the business lessons from people who’ve been successful, Jared O’Toole and I have created a very simple newsletter to publicize upcoming entrepreneurial events: http://HelpAnEntrepreneur.com

No, we aren’t affiliated with HARO or Peter Shankman and we aren’t competing with him in any way.  But we did email him to make sure he wouldn’t have a problem with it (he hasn’t responded). If I were him my only concern would be being mistakenly associated with a sub-par newsletter and that won’t be the case. HAEO will be a first rate operation.

Help An Entrepreneur Out was created to keep all entrepreneurs and business owners up-to-date on the latest business events submitted by any. These events, including seminars, webinars, teleseminars, workshops, and conferences.

####Update: HAEO is getting better and better.  Check it out:

Ask and answer entrepreneur questions!

Ask your question and HAEO will publish it out in our next newsletter.  Our subscriber base of helpful business people will send you answers via email or Twitter.  Imagine having crowds of entrepreneurs at your fingertips.

Got a question? Help An Entrepreneur Out

• Want to know the best blog posts to motivate young entrepreneurs? HAEO!
• Want ideas for your next viral marketing campaign? HAEO!
• Want names of good intellectual property lawyers in New York? HAEO!
• Want to know what business events are going on in Boston next week? HAEO!
• Want a list of great branding books to read? HAEO!

Got an answer? Help An Entrepreneur Out

• Want to brand yourself as a credible source on a topic? HAEO!
• Want to grow your network, get leads and establish expertise? HAEO!
• Want to simply lend a helping hand? HAEO!

These events will come to you via our newsletter every Monday.

Submit your events to us to be published: send us your event by Noon EST Sunday to be published in Monday’s newsletter.

We encourage all business event holders to send their event info to us for listing in upcoming newsletters!

Submit your event here: http://HelpAnEntrepreneur.com

Help An Entrepreneur Out Email:

Sure, Facebook is trying to peak our interests becuase they know so much about us. They try to give us stuff we are interested in, It’s not exactly permission advertising though. What we don’t want to see ads from Wendy’s and Blockbuster in our NewsFeed. It’s a waste of my life.

Permission advertising would be Google adwords–we Google something and it gives us “sponsored links” to what we might really be looking for. They are in textual form, don’t add to the clutter and we just bypass them as a google result that we didn’t feel like clicking.

YELP! also has an excellent model with their reviews. People ask for Italian food in Chicago, they get real candid reviews for stuff they are looking for. If your an Italian restaurant in Chicago you can pay for your reviews to be at the top of the page. You’ve got the option to feature one of your best reviews, but if your food is garbage, the negative reviews are still there. In my opinion Yelp is changing the game–it’s about transparency and trust.

Just like www.Progressive.com “Get the Progressive Direct rate and rates of other top companies.” They tell you how their prices line up with their competition; even if they aren’t the best so what– now you trust Progressive and you’ll think of them in the future. That is trust and transparency right there. No fake marketing fronts, public relations jargon, just the honest truth.

Life is short–do business with the people you trust, who are remarkable enough that YOU want to do business with them–not them pleading for YOUR hard earned money.

1. Sarah Marshall sucks! But the real ones were even more mad.
2. ProShade asks to buy advertising on Mt. Rushmore
3. Oprah gives 276 audience members a car!
4. Meth Coffee Brand
5. DrinkCocaine.com
6. Freaking people out on the street for a show called Afterlife
7. Latest Marketing Stunt Lands GoldenPalace.com in Prison
8. Golden Palace goes streaking with tattoos
9. Vodafone pays streakers too
10. William Shatner sell his Kindey Stone to who else… GoldenPalace.com
11. CTV paid for 400 tanks of gas to celebrate the opening of their show Corner Gas
12. EA sports also likes to give away gas
13. Expedia.com dances in Union Square
14. The 2007 Boston Bomb Scare…oops
15. The Beatles did their Rooftop Gig in 1969
16. Snapple makes a really really really big popsicle
17. When the Russian space station Mir was hurtling toward Earth, Taco Bell placed a giant target in the Pacific Ocean offering a free taco to every American if Mir hit the bull’s-eye.
18. Fake football players get people to sign up for text messages for their favorite team
19. Fake children jumping out in front of cars to slow down speeders
20. Half.com pays Halfway, OR $500k to adopt their name
21. Fake Gucci Ad sent in by some random guy accidentally got published
22. Bad Turkey Drop
23. Fake public urinators to help the NYC bathroom crisis
24. Chaining kids to buildings to protest child labor
25. Howard Stern gives away 500 Sirius radios
26. Fake prostitutes solves everything
27. A very big soccer ball for Nike
28. Taco Bell buys the Liberty Bell
29. The left handed Whopper
30. WhopperFreakout.com
31. TheGreatBritishDuckRace.co/uk
32. Giant Eva Longoria can be seen on Google Earth
33. Giant iPod can be seen from Space
34. Print Marketing can be used nicely still “for every kind of load” VW
35. Reality TV for Cats by MeowMix
36. Radiohead let’s you name your price for their CD
37. 16,000 quarters used as stickers
38. Fake Volcanos make people angry
39. Fat kids tricycle for childhood obesity
40. Nude Lush invade Manhattan
41. 111 topless men go shopping at A&F
42. Guerrilla graffiti
43. Kobe jumps over an Aston Martin
44. Facelesspeople.com
45. Papa John’s Guy sticker looks at you through the peep hole
46. Jeep scales a NYC skyscraper
47. Ruby Tuesdays blows up a restaraunt…NOT
48. Richard Branson has a nice romp promoting their Virgin finance arm
49. Molson promted teen drinking and made people MADD
50. Pizza Hut names Joey Chestnut eating champ “VP of Pizza”
51. Mini Cooper flys around as Zig. Zag. Zug. (ZaggedEdge.com is cool too)
52. A Good ole’ fashion Gun fight
53. Ladanian Tomlinson gets a street team for PRO Bowl Votes
54. Chis Bosh asks for your vote on Youtube as a car salesman
55. Why not get married on a Vespa?
56. Really colorful balconies for Ikea
57. 800,000 people jump into their pants for Levis
58. BMW’s RampenFest fooled everyone
59. DKNY paints 75 bikes orange
60. Airtran puts 10,000 pink flamingos in Downtown Chicago

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I truly admire people who “think different”. Apple’s slogan has brought them fame and fortune, Seth Godin and the idea of the Purple Cow.  If you set yourself apart from the pack you will truly reap the benefits whether in business or life in general.

Marketing condoms “virally” may seem a bit strange.  Off-color and ironic? Yes.  Different?  Most defintely.  But with 35million views of the Trojan Games, I’d like to introduce my readers to The Viral Factory the people behind the commercial.

Amazing use of viral marketing can be viewed here: http://www.trojangames.co.uk/ (18+ please)

Check out www.theviralfactory.com

I’m still in shock!

Remember the first time you saw this ad? It’s hard to look at it, it struck a cord, you wanted to help.  They first started running this 10 years ago on television.

Today, I saw the above ad as a banner, and didn’t even flinch.  This proves that consumers are becoming totally immune to traditional advertising.  This ad worked on TV the first few times we saw it, but fell of quickly after that.  TV provides a captive audience, who are forced to watch commercials.  Of course we usually mute them, talk during them, fast forward them with tivo, or change the channel.

Banner ads are even worse!  Nobody is immune to a snapshot like that, but with all the garbage on the internet, we drown this stuff out.  This ads effectiveness is wearing off because:

1. I’ve seen it before
2. I don’t look at banner ads, my attention is focused on the content of the page
3. It’s hidden amongst the clutter off my monitor, under im windows, popups, streaming stock quotes, skype conversations and itunes.  TV ads are fullscreen and you have nothing else to look at while banner ads are the last thing you look at.

Check out the difference, when you maximize this commercial below:

Traditional advertising is dying.  We are immune and the non profit behind these ads needs to rethink where they are spending their funds.  They should steal a page out of smoking’s Truth campaign creative advertising…

Why not have volunteers go to Times Square wearing masks to raise awareness and hand out fliers.  Video tape onlookers reactions and put it on YouTube.  Arrange for news crews to cover this. This type of advertising is less expensive AND get’s people talking…I hope this post does too.

Digg and Stumble this in hope for donations to Operation Smile

Let Go of the fallacy that your brand belongs to you. It belongs to the market

Co-create your brand by collaborating with your consumers.

Scrap the focus groups, fire the cool chasers, and hire your audience.

Facilitate your most influential and passionate consumers in translating your brand’s message to a broader audience.

Be patient. Your brand initiative could take years—or weeks—to take off.

Be flexible. Carefully plan every step, but be totally open to having the story rewritten along the way.

Lose control. Free yourself to seize sudden opportunities that only last for moments.

Resist the paranoid urge for consistency. Embrace the value of being surprising and imperfect.

Respect your community. Draw the line between promotion and the adbusting trinity of manipulation, intrusion, and co-option.

Let the market hijack your brand.

Companies start with a grassroots, viral marketing strategy, but Brendan Lynch and Sergio Salas have taken the idea one step further with their new surf-inspired, eco-friendly clothing company nvohk. The apparel brand, which is still in the design phase, is using a creative business model, known by a variety of names like crowdsourcing, crowdfounding, and community managed, that raises small amounts of money from a large group of members and allows them to shape the direction of the company.

Salas and Lynch met in 2005 in Pepperdine’s MBA program and launched nvohk in December of ‘07 through word of mouth and the projectnvohk.com Web site. They started by getting commitments from interested parties for $50 that would be submitted when the brand had enough momentum to launch a product line. Within two months 1,250 people had pledged support, and by the beginning of May, the tally was at 2,800 folks from more than 20 nations.

nvohk Co-founder Brendan Lynch

“nvohk is challenging the way brands are built and managed and testing the ‘wisdom of crowds’ on a whole new level,” says Lynch. “Before nvohk, consumers could only vote with their wallets, now they can participate in the development and management of the brand they wear. nvohk’s business model starts with member demand and word of mouth marketing baked in before products are even offered for sale.”

Read more here

#3 BURGER KING GUYS ORDER AT WENDY’S……Spicy and his brother (the guys in burger suits) walk up to the Wendy’s Drive thru.  When they are asked if they want a baked potato, they yell back “WHAT ARE WE IN Russia?!”

Not as good as the Whopper Freakout though.

#2 STEP BROTHERS MOVIE: 

This trailer speaks for its self.

#1 GATORADE BALL GIRL

This commercial started as a viral marketing campaign by Gatorade.  It recieved millions of views on youtube, break.com, college humor, etc.  Below is the YouTube version, in the real commercial they add a Gatorade symbol at the end.  Notice, there is no reference to Gatorade at all other than the bottle under her chair.  See the Chicago Tribune’s writeup on the viral campaign here.

Honorable Mention: New Verizon DeadZone commercial–new homeowners move into a deadzone, pretty good too, when the new homeowner says she has Verizon, the lady says “well you’ve got crabgrass”.

In August, Starbucks (SBUX) directs baristas in the southeastern United States to e-mail a coupon for a free iced coffee to friends and family members. But e-mail knows no geographic boundaries and, worse, can be printed repeatedly.

After the e-mail spreads to every corner of the country and is reproduced en masse, Starbucks yanks the offer, leading disgruntled customer Kelly Coakley to file a $114 million class-action lawsuit.

One venti, triple-shot, extra-hot lawsuit comin’ right up…

NOT THE TYPE OF VIRAL MARKETING YOU WANT FOR YOUR COMPANY!!!