HandMeDowns.com. Now The Mommalution Has Its Own Classifieds.

Handmedowns.com is a perfect example of what Web 2.0 does best. The site takes a highly relatable concept — hand me downs – and upgrades it for today. It’s a great example of what today’s Mommalution is all about — taking that powerful VOM (Voice of Moms) and putting it to savvy, sensible good use.

Here’s what the site says:

Handmedowns is a new online classifieds site for moms where you can buy, sell, give away or donate your new and “gently used” baby gear, toys, clothes, childcare services and more in a family friendly atmosphere.

We pull together and organize the best baby/child/mom listings from around the web AND combine them with handmedowns.com listings posted on our site to create a one-stop destination for busy moms.

Handmedowns.com’s CEO and founder, Norah Weinstein, who is a lawyer and founded The Hollywood Reporter, ESQ., is a mom who was frustrated with searching online for much needed items for her 14-month-old daughter. “The classified sites that were available had some great listings, but were not designed with parents in mind. Moms are too busy to sift through thousands of listings to find the items they need, especially those in good enough condition for their children. Our goal is to raise the bar for baby & kids classifieds.”

Guru’s Take: There are a couple of notable adds that make this site particularly Mom-friendly. Love the Eco focus. Love the Mom Police, a system for moms to flag any listing that appears unsafe or inappropriate. Love the focus on product safety, including a link to recalls. All right on. But those buttons at the top, which let users choose whether they’d like to Buy, Sell, Give Away Free, or Donate. Smart. That’s how we roll these days, managing our stuff in every permutation known to momhood.

Marketers To Ad Agencies: “You Still Don’t Get it.”

I’m an ad agency veteran. My fellow Mad Men fanatics call me Peggy. Once upon a time, Madison Avenue was the place to be; the pulse of all possibility.

Then came the digital age. Luckily, I discovered the ‘Internets’ early on. I made a speedy exit from advertising, where the Petes and the Ducks were asking their ‘girls’ to print out their emails and insisting that Mrs. P&G  could never figure out AOL.  As my Supra modem squawked,  my world was instantly slashed into the ones that ‘get it’ and the ones that don’t.

Ad agencies still don’t get it.

Sapient recently sponsored a national online survey to gain insights into what marketers want from their advertising and marketing agencies in the next 12 months. The survey polled a pivotal group –more than 200 chief marketing officers (CMOs) and senior marketing professionals.

Sapient has put the key takeways from the survey into a Top 10 Wish List for Agencies of the Future.

It’s all about technology, baby.

Virtually every item on the Top 10 Wish List centered on the digital space, from Web 2.0 and social media savvy to interactive advertising to virtual communities to even the availability of a Chief Digital Officer.

The List of Digital Shame:

More than a third of marketers surveyed say they’re not confident in their current agency’s grasp of online digital marketing and interactive advertising. 

• 79% of respondents rated “interactive/digital” functions as ‘important/very important.
• 45% of the respondents have switched agencies (or plan to switch in the next 12 months) for one with greater digital knowledge or have hired an additional digital specialist to handle their interactive campaigns.
• 90% of respondents agree that it is becoming increasingly important that their agency uses ‘pull interactions’ such as social media and online communities rather than traditional ‘push’ campaigns.
• 94% of respondents expressed interest in leveraging virtual communities (public and private) to understand more about their target audience.
• 92% of respondents said it was ‘somewhat’ or ‘very’ important that agency employees use the (social media) technologies that they are recommending.
• 49% of marketers surveyed said that agencies with chief digital officers are more appealing than those without.
• 63% of marketers surveyed said that an agency’s Web 2.0 and social media capabilities are ‘important/very important’ when it comes to agency selection.
• 79% of respondents rated “interactive/digital” functions as ‘important/very important.

Guru’s Take:  Ad and marketing agencies have got to quit insisting that being digital is about age. Yes, the whippersnappers have grown up with it.  My daughter has been online since she was 2, clutching blankie as she easily navigated ancient Macs and PCs. (Cross-platform since Pull-Ups, that’s my girl!)  But that doesn’t mean abdicating social media marketing, new technology or anything interactive to the kiddies.  When the first dotcom era bubbled up, those of us who could no longer squeeze into our high school cheerleader uniforms surfed our way through gallons of Visine and even more Starbucks to stay relevant. And guess what — we are.  We bring solid marketing skills, new product expertise, and consumer-centric insight to a digital world that sorely needs these capabilities.  I’d stack up my digital chops next to a Zuckerberg any day.  Even a divine digital diva like this one.

I suspect that some of this digital malaise on the part of agencies is senior management that ::::sigh :::: still doesn’t get it.  Maybe they’re still waiting to land the Pan Am account.

Cal Bears Tap Into The Power of Video For Friends & Family Opening Game Promo.

BERKELEY – California head football coach Jeff Tedford has named sophomore Kevin Riley as the Golden Bears’ starting quarterback for their opener against Michigan State on Saturday, Aug. 30 at Memorial Stadium. Tedford made the announcement following Thursday afternoon’s preseason practice and said that senior Nate Longshore will also play in the opener.

The Golden Bears will need more than a viral video to play catch up this season.  Last year at this time, they were a nationally ranked football team with great potential.  We actually attended the game in which they were Number 2 for about ten minutes. This year?  All the Web 2.0 tricks, from Tedford’s blog to downloading free fan software, may not be able to compensate for that embarrassing showing in Palo Alto, where the Speedo’d Stanford marching band joyfully tromped on our Bear pride.

On the other hand, Golden Bear Olympians continue to do us proud in Beijing.

Moo Just Grew. Moo Launches New Bigger Business Cards.

a>

The company that turned mini-cards into a mondo success is now going big. Or at least bigger. The mighty Moo now brings its creative customer-centered cool to regular size business cards. Naturally they’re still echelons above those tired generic cards, with extra cool twists like your choice of two eco-friendly paper stocks, one of which is the chlorine-free, 100% recycled, recyclable and biodegradeable Moo ‘Green.’ Then there’s the ‘magic’ technology they’re dubbing ‘PrintFinity’, which lets you have a different photo, logo or design on every card. As they say “it’s a little portfolio in your pocket, a catalogue, a trading card, anything you like.’

Happily, you can even buy your business cards in runs as short as 50. So you’re never stuck with boxes of cards with the wrong address, forcing you to spend the night before the Big Conference making teeny stickers to cover up the old one. Moo really gets that life today is ever evolving and your cards need to morph right along with you. These eclectic cards are $21.99, with the mini-cards still happily available at $19.99.

As is probably pretty obvious, I have long been a Moo fan. And not just because I am originally from Wisconsin and born to worship Golden Guernseys. Moo is a great example of how fresh perspective and imagination plus Web 2.0 tools can transform a commodity business into a whole new industry. Moo Prints, based in London, was the brainchild of Richard Moross, who got bored with the same-old same-old bland of traditional business cards. Moross also noticed that the Internet and its virtual communities were changing the offline world, creating new kinds of relationships and new forms of interaction. There was all that pent-up user-generated-creativity bubbling all over the web. So rather than introduce the mini Moo cards in the same-old, same-old way, Moo invented a new distribution channel by partnering with social networking and community sites like Flickr and Bebo. Now Facebook, etsy, livejournal, Vox and Fotolog have joined the Moo Crew as well.

Here are some ways I’ve used Moo (feel free to add your own ideas here):

*I invented MOOLIGANS Cards for Kids. Because you can add 10 pictures per Moo order, this makes it inexpensive and fast for Moms, Girl Scout troops, teachers, classmates, etc. to create Moo Cards for the group. I set up class, club, activity, school blogs and print that email address or URL on the back of the MOOLIGANS.

* I get teeny Moo-sized envelopes from Paper Source and I put a couple of (different) Moos in the envelope with one of my Guru of New Moo Stickers on the outside. At a conference or event, my teeny envelopes are much less likely to get lost, discarded or neglected, because they’re more substantial, don’t seem boringly corporate and everyone wants to open them and see what’s inside.

*Okay, I'll admit it. I sometimes use pieces-parts-of-myself (or others) rather than my whole face because it's far more intriguing to just show lips or eyes. Mystery!

*I've used Moos as mini event invitations
*For client PR --promoting blogs, books, art, photography, design portfolio
*As very personal and reasonably priced birthday gifts
*I like to buy art when I travel --- I bring it home and Moo-it so I can always have tiny souvenirs of that streetfair in Avignon with me. And it's a nice gift for your traveling partners.
*I tried (but failed) to turn my stickers into cute magnets. I am dangerous with craft supplies.