Every year, advertisers spend millions of dollars to capture the attention of football fans nationwide. This year’s price tag was a whopping $2.7 million for 30-seconds of air time. But has Super Bowl advertising lost its flare? Has the general public become immune to advertisers efforts to shock and entertain them?

I believe Super Bowl advertising is on a downhill trend. We are bombarded by hundreds of advertising messages each and every day and while many people look forward to seeing the Super Bowl ads each year, I don’t believe the advertisers messages are making a real impact. Sure, they get headline news for one day after they air, but whether people remember the product they are trying to sell is key and is something isn’t always happening.

While I think some commercials may have missed the target (enough with the cavemen already) one commercial in particular did the best job getting the actual product benefit across. The Tide To Go “Screaming Stain” commercial not only showed the benefit of using the product at a crucial moment, but was also entertaining. That crazy screaming stain got quite a few laughs. Tide To Go has also create a mini site around this promotion which the chance to win prizes daily or become famous by creating your own spoof of the commercial. By the way, this was Tide’s first attempt at a Super Bowl commerical.

Check out Yahoo’s top five Super Bowl commercials and tell me what you think. Who did the best job of getting their product message across?

When I was a kid, I couldn’t get enough of the cartoon The Jetson’s. I was fascinated with all of the gadgets, especially the robots. Rosie was exactly what I needed. A robot that would clean my room! That would have been awesome. Today, we have all kinds of different robots, but I find one in particular the most fascinating. This fascinating robot is powered by a heart muscle that came from a rat.

This robot was designed by scientists in Korea, and it is smaller than the thickness of a fingernail. This “itsy bitsy” robot moves like a crab at the lightning speed of .0002 miles per hour. Scientists hope that this new technology will lead to bigger and better things. They hope that one day, that it will be used to carry agents to bust up clots in clogged blood vessels. Although this microscopic “Rosie” is highly advanced, it still has a long way to go. The human blood stream flows around two miles per hour, and it must be able to travel faster than that in order to compete with the blood flow. Hey, I’ve got an idea. How about they use a heart muscle from a Cheetah instead? Wouldn’t it be faster then? Well, it probably wouldn’t, but maybe they will try.

All in all, yesterday’s cartoon has become today’s reality, and robots have become much more advanced than I could have ever imagined. I only have one issue concerning today’s technologies. Where is the robot that is going to clean my room?

When I first stated my career in sales, I prided myself on relationship building. My father, who is a consultant in the oil and gas industry would tell me all the time growing up that the most important part of selling is who you know. I use to ask him, “what if you don’t know anyone that wants to buy what you have to sell?” He would look at me and smile and say,” Well you better go make some friends, because its all about who you know, not what you know”.
When I first started out in sales, I realized one important thing about myself. I was a procrastinator, uggg. Not because I meant to be, but mostly because I was disorganized. I was very fortunate the meet an incredible mentor that helped me figure out how to fix a few things that would help me get on track! These are her lessons:

1. The fortune is in the follow up

Following-through is critical to being a success. Remember, people get busy and sometimes need a reminder of why the two of you should get to learn more about each other. I use to be a card gatherer, now, instead I set up meetings with the people I want to do business with or better yet, if you were introduced by a friend or client, have them set up the meeting, edification is huge and will increase your potential of having a successful meeting. I also immediately email every person that I meet or speak to and thank them for meeting with me or let them know about exciting events or opportunities that may be coming up that would benefit them. Read the rest of this entry »