What a week! For the first full week of November, we are off to a great start of the 2014 Holiday season.

Here is my list of Marketing Favorites and things that impacted me and my business this week. Remember, you can receive inspiration from many places.

 

1. Grumpy Cat Christmas Movie

The internet marketing sensation Grumpy Cat hits television this Thanksgiving. From a marketing standpoint, this is a natural progression. Grumpy Cat started as an internet meme, his owner snapping photos, and putting funny quotes to the images. From there, it went to a website, and widespread notoriety. Fast forward to 2013, and the holiday season brought books, mugs, calendars, and grumpy stuffed animals, and over $300,000 to his owner. This year, it’s the Lifetime movie. So excited.

 

2. Foo Fighters new album is amazing and their marketing for this album is even more genius. They are releasing the album with a complementary 8 part HBO series, documenting  the 8 cities where they traveled and got inspiration for the 8 songs on the album. Each city has roots in music and culture, and they wanted to tell the story of the cities through their music.   They went to each city and interviewed musicians that impacted that region, and used what they said in the songs.   Here is Congregation, with Zac Brown and inspiration from Nashville.

 

3. Facebook has URL for users running Tor enables Browsers. 

First of all a definition of TOR: TOR is the easiest way to browse the web anonymously. TOR, which stands for The Onion Router was initially a network designed by the US Navy (of course.) Now it’s a non-profit whose main-function is the research and development of online privacy tools. Tor disguises your identity by moving your traffic across different TOR servers, hence the reason you can browse anonymously. To access Tor, you need to download the TOR browser.

tor

So the big news of the week is that the social network just created a dedicated Tor link that ensures people who visit the site from the anonymous web browser won’t be mistaken for botnets. This is a big deal, mostly because it’s Facebook. Most likely that link won’t work for you, unless you are connected to TOR of course. What exactly does this mean Facebook?

 

4. Starbucks Unveils Wine Service after 4 p.m. at stores across America.

Yes, you read that correctly, Starbucks is now a wine-bar. After 4 p.m. in your favorite local coffee shop across America, you can now order a Pinot Grig along with your Venti Mocha. Way to think outside the box Starbucks, or rather outside the paper cup.