My OPRAH OWN Live Try-outs – the good, the bad and the ugly
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Once again, I have to give a big shout out to Ellen Rohr — my partner in crime on many projects including the latest — her encouragement for me to fly down to Atlanta to audition live for the Oprah Winfrey Network! What a trip to Hot-lanta it was!
Actually, Monaica Ledell (my GM) and I had a blast. I saw my roommate from Emerson College who I hadn’t seen in 22 years — who flew in from Pittsburgh to see yours truly and we had a great time reconnecting. It was as if we hadn’t missed a beat.Once again, I have to give a big shout out to Ellen Rohr — my partner in crime on many projects including the latest — her encouragement for me to fly down to Atlanta to audition live for the Oprah Winfrey Network! What a trip to Hot-lanta it was!
After arriving in Atlanta, I reconsidered the original three-minute clip I was going to submit to Oprah and Mark Burnett for something less scripted and more like the real “me.” My crazy mid-life existence — EXPOSED! If you haven’t already seen the audition, go to MY BIG OPRAH DEBUT for a sneak preview of my life behind the scenes and please vote for me multiple times (it’s all legal to do that), so I might be considered to host a show on mid-life, baby boomer realities — that’s fun and definitely keeps things in perspective.
It’s all about being willing and open to reinvent yourself after experiencing what life send your way — good and not-so-good.
In the live audition, I arrived at Kohl’s at 5:48 am — that’s right in the MORNING — (have I told you all the great things I bought there for this trip?), I was corralled behind the store with about 5000 or more other people who arrived at approximately the same time — I was thinking to myself, “where the hell is Ellen?”
Fortunately, given that Atlanta was the last stop of the tour — these folks had it down. We were given a wrist ban (purple my favorite color) by 7:07 am and told to return at our designated time slot — of 1 – 2 pm for the LIVE group audition.
My Mid-Life Puberty Pitch…
I then explained that several years ago, Gayle King (yup, that’s right Oprah’s BFF), asked me to write a column for O Magazine just before my life went into a tail spin that included separation, divorce, liver failure, transplant, two-month coma, three-month stint in ICU and brain surgery. Thankfully, my survival/thrvial instincts kicked in and I made it through the other side and lived to tell about it and help others undergoing major life crises.
Thank you for your support!!
Girl Power? Women Selling Cars To Women
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So, recently I stumbled upon this video and it really caught my eye.
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Here’s a break down of my thoughts in real time:
- I’m kind of offended.
- Paul is so direct about it.
- Seriously? The website is pink? Really?
- What, are we stupid? Is that why we need to deal solely with women?
- This is a marketing mistake.
(Then, 2 things. came to me…)
- Wait. He said the traffic to the website was up 40 percent.
- I guess it works!
- Maybe women really do want to deal with just women.
- Especially in buying a car, something that’s normally a man’s domain.
- Can’t deny that women need to be marketed to differently; we respond to different things.
- Essentially, this is what all marketing is; they’re just being up front about it
- Other marketing strategies divide you into segments and demographics and try to target you in all these different ways
- This dude is just saying it straight out
- Maybe he’s not treating us like we’re stupid
- Maybe he’s acknowledging what we all know.
Question is – do women really trust men other women?
New Jersey Intern In the House!
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It’s a sweltering summer day down the Jersey Shore. I’m sitting in a cozy little pizzeria with some friends, and while the conversation turns from schoolwork to weather to nightlife, the ancient television set in the corner provides a hum of background noise. As we sit, a commercial suddenly cuts through the chatter.
“Did you know 6 out of 10 Americans are in debt?” a low voice inquires ominously, and the ad then proceeds to tell us how we can all access easy debt solutions for a low cost.
“Seriously?” I find myself saying, and my friends all pause in their conversation.
6 out of 10 people are in debt? What, is that supposed to scare us? Of course 6 out of 10 people are in debt,” I continue. “I’m a college student; I have student loans. That makes me ‘in debt.’ Huge numbers of Americans are paying off a mortgage. That puts them ‘in debt.’ Technically anyone who owns a credit card, or owes anyone else money at all, is in debt. 6 out of 10 is designed to sound impressive, but it’s actually nothing special. It’s all spin,
I finish, and my friends look at me for a moment in silence.
“Alise, you would notice that,” someone finally says, and one by one they all turn back to their pizza.
My name is Alise Fisher, and I’m a public relations student in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. Clearly, the lure of a career in public relations or marketing has already gotten to me. I look at the average products of our everyday lives and see the hours of planning and strategy that went into them. In business especially, it’s essential to notice these trends and realize when you’re being marketed to, not only so you can see that the world around us is full of marketing ploys, but also that it is rich with marketing opportunities. As a guest blogger here at growyourbusinessnetwork.com, I plan on sharing my experiences with such hidden marketing techniques as I encounter them in my daily life. So open your eyes, and prepare yourselves – things are about to get interesting.
Until next time,
Alise
Baseball, Hot dogs, Apple Pie and . . . Chevrolet?
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“Take me out to the….Chevy dealership?”
It’s summer time and it’s the season for baseball, hot dogs and good ol’ fashioned apple pie. And some Chevy automobiles too. My how the mighty have fallen . . . or risen to the occasion as the case may be.
This well-known brand — once the hallmark for “Americana” has re-defined it’s place on our automobile landscape and beyond — even after a government bailout. I love a comeback story and Chevy is the perfect one to look at right now.My only piece of unsolicited advise to the CEO of GM is that I would have flown like the rest of us folks to Washington DC and had a drive take me to the capital in a 2010 Chevy Cameao Coupe and made sure the media was alerted.
As for me — I’m in dire need of the 2010 Corvette Convertible.
In red, naturally.
PETA: People Eliciting Total Attention?
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PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) sure knows how to break through the clutter, don’t they? For years, they’ve produced controversial magazine ads, billboards and more than do what they can to shock us into submission. Some of their advertising materials have contained graphic imagery of animal cruelty, while others have shown a lot of celebrity skin.
PETA’s “I’d Rather go Naked Than Wear Fur” and “Go Vegetarian” campaigns (see photos) have included celebrities like Baywatch and Playboy star Pamela Anderson, celebutante Khloe Kardashian and even NFL player Tony Gonzalez (funny he takes a stand against fur, but plays a game where he catches a “pigskin” on Sundays, but I digress).
Pop culture, it seems, is now fertile ground for PETA as well. Two recent ads go Bob Barker in promoting spaying and neutering pets to control population, proclaiming phrases like, “Don’t let your dog or cat become an ‘octomom,’” or “Too much sex can be a bad thing” with a photo of the now-infamous Tiger Woods standing with his hands on his hips, seemingly ruing his recent serial mistress scandal.
The good news here is you can learn a valuable lesson from PETA whether you think they’re right or wrong. Vegans and carnivores alike can agree that their methods are brilliant. Find something that’s out there (i.e. a celebrity who’s willing to take their clothes off or a ubiquitous pop culture story), jump on in piggyback fashion and ride until you can’t ride any more. If the topic or presentation is controversial, EVEN BETTER—people are bound to talk about it more.
So thanks, PETA. I eat meat, but I still stand in admiration of your advertising.
