I hate to admit it, but the word of mouth marketing (WOMM) and the peer pressure to be a Web 2.0 amateur photographer is too great for me to resist.

nataliedee.com

Even after my horrible, horrible experience with Flickr, I have finally conceded to sign back on and upload away…even though the process is still slower than molasses (2-3 minutes per photo, if not longer…..this sucks if you have a lot of photos).

BACK STORY: Last November, I forgot my Flickr account password and it took customer service two days to manually reset it. Apparently the merge with Yahoo/SBC Global prevented me from resetting my password via e-mail because of the confusion over whose jurisdiction it was to help me. After making multiple customer service phone calls and e-mails to all three parties, I got an apology and a link to reset. However, after that annoying ordeal, I angrily blogged about my dissatisfaction on my discontinued Xanga (entry is titled “Fuck You Flickr!”) and vowed to never sign on to Flickr again.

REALITY: Unfortunately, when so many people that you know have a flickr account that they update and engage daily, it is really hard to be the odd ball and use something else. So for a trial period, I am going to take Flickr back, but if you piss me off again, so help me………just don’t expect me to purchase a Pro account anytime soon!

So what crazy PR/Marketing campaign brought on this sudden interest in becoming a picture person? Thanks to my photo-taking and design-savvy friends and family who sent me links via IM to two cool new web-base applications and services (see below), I now want in on all the fun.

• Blurb - Scrapbooking for people who hate scrapbooking. Basically, it’s a publishing service that lets you design and print you photos into nicely bound soft/hard cover books with dust jackets. I am currently working on my first book, but it might take me a while to finish as my artistic gene is a bit under developed (the result of a liberal arts education and two years at The Agency).



• Photoshop Express - Photoshop for people who can’t justify buying the real thing. This is a very cool web-based version of Photoshop that’s free and allows you to edit your pictures with Photoshop tools that have been simplified for people like me. Now I too can adjust lighting and clean up a pimply face.

Now for all you newbies and oldies to marketing who are still scratching their heads at how to run a proper WOMM campaign on-line….the IM technique is how it has been done, but for a more cutting-edge way to do it, I suggest that you look into Twitter and master it. So on that note, please stop with the direct mailing pieces and get with the program.

Just came back from watching The Forbidden Kingdom. My initial reaction is that this movie met my expectations—predictable plot filled with fortune cookie dialogue of the cheese variety that’s filled with some pretty good action sequences. However, I must admit that this movie also surprisingly had some well thought out and delivered jokes. Now for a more in depth movie review or plot summaries, please visit Rotten Tomato and IMBD.

Meanwhile, on to the case study!

Background
If you have watched any of the movie trailers or have seen any of the promotional posters plastered on billboards and buses in the past two months, you are likely to believe that this is strictly a martial arts film starring Jackie Chan and Jet Li. But don’t be fooled, that’s just what the movie’s marketing team wants you to believe.

You see, if you have watched the movie’s original trailer (also see below), you would have known long ago that this is actually an Alice in Wonderland story about white American boy who travels back to ancient China where he become the reluctant hero on a LOTR type quest.

Problem
In my personal and professional opinion (i.e. this is just speculation as I don’t work for Lions Gate), I think that the marketing team quickly realized that enough people (both martial arts movie buffs and lay people) who saw the first trailer didn’t know what to think about the movie’s main character and plot. While there was not an overwhelmingly volatile sentiment or any newsworthy controversy against the film or the film makers, the people who watched the trailer were obviously perplexed. Here are few blog examples with some interesting reader comments:

• /film
• The Movie Blog
• First Showing
• Film Junk
• Nerd with Swag

Solution
So to prevent their most profitable market (though obviously not the film’s target audience which is arguably children and fantasy fans) from being alienated from the film, the marketing team hauled ass to prepare some bad-ass trailers and posters to focus on the film’s headliners and their martial arts skills. See below for exhibit A and exhibit B:

Exhibit A: Movie Poster

Exhibit B: Movie Trailer

Here’s the full trailer #2, which starts to move the focus away from the American boy in ancient China plot while only referring to him as the “lost traveler” among the rag-tag band of misfits out to stop an evil warlord.

Here’s a TV spots edited from trailer #2, which has completely eliminated the American boy entirely from the trailer’s plot summary and images. They pretty much lead you to believe that you are going to watch a martial arts epic like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or House of Flying Daggers.

On anther note, I also suspect that the opening sequence in the actual movie that takes place in modern times was edited significantly. This was probably done when the film makers realized that no body cares about the boy’s back story or his participation in the film. So in order for the movie to get to ancient China quicker, much of the scenes in modern times that were featured in the first trailer were cut. Coincidence? I think not.

Conclusion
So, did it work? Well based on my observations at the office and at the theater, this crazy idea just may have done its job…..

• At the office: In passing I heard that someone, whose self-proclaims to be “really into those martial arts action movies” was planning to see the movie with a group of friends and then grab dinner. In response, a second person said, oh you mean like “Crouching Tiger”? I love those movies! My thoughts…..”Boy, oh boy, is this person in for a surprise!”
• At the theater: It was packed. Granted, it’s opening night, so its not that surprising; however, its interesting to note that a good percentage of them looked like the martial arts film buffs and were Asian/Asian American. When the opening scene cut from the Monkey King fighting sequence to American boy getting out of bed in modern times, I heard a quiet but collective “What the F*ck! Are we in the right theater?” Clearly, the marketing team was successful in misleading some of these people to buy tickets….which of course forces them to continue watching in order to get their money’s worth.

But its hard to tell with the movie only having been out for one day. Guess we’ll have to wait on the weekend box office numbers to know for sure.

UPDATE: It’s official. The Forbidden Kingdom is the #1 movie in America (all thanks to some rather smart, though very misleading promotional materials from the marketing team). Though as MikeMai also points out in his comment below, the editing team should also be commended for making some very wise choices to make this movie more “acceptable” to those of us who were tricked into watching it.

My only hope is that this doesn’t become the new Hollywood formula for martial arts action movies (i.e. Send a present-day American kid back to ancient Asia to become the savior to the Asian people). It would be a revival of the Karate Kid saga all over again…..once was enough…please!

Today is my blog’s two month anniversary and I am happy to report that as of today, over 5,000 visitors have came to my site. For sure, this would not have been possible without Edison Chen –So to really highlight his impact on my site, I’d like to share some interesting statistics

While it seems that people have taken a liking to my “public relations notes” on life and news/gossip, my first post about Edison Chen continues to be a very tough act to follow, though my second post about Edison Chen is equally popular. So this leads me to conclude that I either need to follow Edison Chen’s every move until I am bored out of my mind or to seek out the next big thing on the Asian tabloids and write my P.R. heart out……any thoughts?

But seriously, I think that this just means that I need to refine my blog and focus its content and themes. If I learned anything at the BlogHER Business Conference, its that the most successful blogs are not personal blogs (unless you are really ready to bare your soul to the world without any misgivings like Heather B. Armstrong of www.dooce.com). Instead they have a consistent theme and a community around them. So stay tuned as I do some spring cleaning.

Have you been to the circus and thought that the flying trapeze would be fun to try? I have and yesterday I fulfilled my dream to fly at the Trapeze School New York.

While you might thing that this is a strange “thing to do” as a NY tourist, it was definitely one of the top highlights of my trip. A special thanks to the wonderful lady who help me capture my experience on video!

Video #1: Here’s a video of my second try on the flying trapeze where I swing and hang upside down. (My first attempt wasn’t captured on film unfortunately).

Video #2: Here’s a video of my first successful back flip after swinging and hanging upside down.

Video #3: Here’s a video of my first catch, which I did on the first try! Woo-hoo!!

PR Notes: The Trapeze School New York is a perfect example of successful public relations. Not only do they have a long list of media placements, but they also have some rather unique and very strategic placements that lead me to sign up for my first class.

I first saw the school in action on an episode of Sex in the City, where Sarah Jessica Parker’s character, Carrie Bradshaw is taking a class at the school for research for an article that she’s working on. My first reaction was “OMG, they have a trapeze school in the middle of New York City! I want to do that.” Shortly afterwards, I forgot about it. Then a few weeks ago, I find the school listed on a tourist guidebook I bought and the light bulb flashed in my head and I said to myself, “I have to try this out when I go to NY!” Soon after, I signed up for their Saturday morning class and the rest is on YouTube.

So, I am finally home and it is 7:33am PT / 10:33am ET. I realize that I have not blogged since I left the airport going to NYC, but that’s partially due to a rather poor a Wi-Fi connection at the conference (especially for Mac users) along with a rather costly in-room Internet connection via Ethernet cable (I’d only consider paying if I could at least go online from bed rather than be strapped down to a desk).

The other reason is that I kinda wanted to spend my free time before/in-between/after the BlogHER conference exploring the city, eating new foods or sleeping.

But now that I am back, here’s what you will look forward to reading once I finish unpacking and re-cooping:

• BlogHER Conference: While I won’t be providing a detailed recap (there were live bloggers who took care of that), there were definitely a few good points worth noting.
• The Metropolitan Museum of Art: Loved the Costume Institute, but I was very disappointed at not being able to see the Unicorn Tapestries at the Cloisters (long story why).
• The Museum of Sex: Interesting and surprisingly educational
• Flor de Mayo: Cuban/Peruvian Chinese food and Chinese people who speak Spanish, who knew?
• SOHO: Only two set destinations here, Muji and Uniqlo
• Trapeze School New York: How I fulfilled my dream to fly

Stayed tuned….