Marketing Your Creativity

The other day my friend (and marketing guru) posted on Facebook a photo of a current 2012 Olympian standing casually next to the Olympic legend, Bruce Jenner.  My friends comment was that the young female Olympian has no clue about the power of celebrity and was not making the most of meeting the 1976 Decathlon Champion and now of Kardashian fame.

Somewhere in the back of my mind, a memory tickled of another young woman, meeting the very same legend with no knowledge of the power of celebrity photos in marketing.

The year was 2004, Bruce Jenner and his team were teaching a pre-conference seminar at a Training Conference in New Orleans (this was a year prior to Katrina).  I signed up for the session, not to meet Bruce Jenner (duh!), but because the topic intrigued me.  I don’t remember the exact title, but it was something about mind over matter.

I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into, (more…)

Heather Morrow & Dr. Martha Beck (2010)

In January of 2010, I had the honor of meeting Dr. Martha Beck and hear her give an inspirational keynote speech at the Craft & Hobby Association Convention.   If you follow Oprah, you might recognize the name — Dr. Beck (call me Marty) is an author of many self-help books and is a regular columnist in O: The Oprah Magazine.

At the time, I wrote a brief article for my Creative Souls eZine.  I have been working on getting myself back on center with organizing the piles of piles and I came across the notes I had taken that day in this tiny little notebook.  So, I thought I would share them to maybe inspire you to Follow Your North Star.

As I took these notes, I felt as if she was talking just to me.   (more…)

This past weekend I had the opportunity to hear Kathy Ireland speak at a marketing conference in Chicago.  Just before she was scheduled to be on, I was headed to the restroom and ran into her.  She smiled brightly and said “hello” – like we were old friends just running into each other.  I returned the smile and greeting – not putting it together fast enough that it was Kathy Ireland I was talking to.  Living in Los Angeles, this happens to me often.  I see someone I recognize and then after the moment has passed I realize that they are some sort of celebrity I’d seen in a movie or on TV.  Duh!

Anyway, Kathy Ireland soon took the stage and shared her story.  She talked about how she leveraged her super-model career into a $1.4 billion empire by creating (more…)

Whether we admit to it or not, we as humans love things like gossip, soap operas, eavesdropping, sharing secrets, peeping, and Entertainment Tonight (basically, everything on the E! cable network). And let’s not forget People Magazine—yes, I read it religiously every week. Why are we obsessed with this as a culture? It’s the human interest. It’s finding out about OTHER people’s lives, the intricacies, the quirky little details, the strange ways of being. Sometimes we’re looking to see how DIFFERENT others’ lives are. Perhaps we’re aspiring to be like them, or maybe we’re ridiculing them. Sometimes, we’re just looking to see how SIMILAR their lives are. (“Hey, celebrities go grocery shopping too?”)

For whatever reason, we stay glued to the minutest details of peoples’ lives. It’s something you should think about implementing to attract clients. Don’t laugh, I’m serious. You can use this deep ‘human interest’ need we all have to your advantage.

How? By letting people into the little details of your OWN life. (more…)

There is an old saying about getting a job (especially in Los Angeles), that it’s not what you know, but who you know.  Well, this is true not only in getting a job but also in getting and keeping customers.  Success (rather than, guilt) by association.  If you know or have met a “celebrity,” somehow your “status” goes up.  And you don’t really need to “know” the celebrity.  You just have to story or photo linking you to them.

I have literally physically bumped into Jay Leno, not once – but twice.  Of course he apologized when it was clearly my fault (I can be a bit of a klutz).  The first time was at Virgin Records on Sunset Strip.   (more…)