Article can be found here: http://simplifierlab.com/mt/archives/2006/02/drunk-driving-ad-campaign.php

All that is in the article is one picture that shows a handicapped parking spot with this script painted on the asphalt: “Every 48 seconds, a drunk driver makes another person eligible to park here.” The image is vivid, no words or explanation to supplement the image. It makes the message even clearer.

A good example of a picture is worth a thousand words. The simplicity helps add to the horror of the fact, the realization of the frequency of such an awful thing happening so often. It is also a thousand times more effective than any PSA that the government could have written. The originality helps the piece and makes it stronger, more relatable and memorable, all factors that strengthen the image.

Article can be found here: http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/050614glaser/

This article talks about a contest that was held to see which website could get the most traffic or technocrati links between May 19 and June 9. What they found was the winners didn’t have short catchy names, or most of the things you’ll see big corporations trying to create in today’s viral advertising world. They were funny, controversial, meant to shock and awe. Many of them had long unwieldy names like http://forgetmenotpanties.contagiousmedia.org and came out in the top.

What’s important to take from this article is the trends that are appearing in contagious media now and for the future. Short, hip domain names are no longer important. Something that will stick in the brain is of the upmost importance, whether it comes from your content or your domain name. As long as you can make an impression, good or bad, you will get traffic. As they say, “there is no good or bad press; only press.”

Image can be found here: http://assets0.ordienetworks.com/images/user_photos/1285387/3b218f7e6eca95e1d1e6f2c77f1e7be7_width_600x.png

This post is especially interesting to me. When you first look at the image, it’s just an empty chair done in the style of the classic “hope” poster President Obama used in his campaign in 2008. It’s referencing Clint Eastwood’s speech at the Republican national convention held recently in which he had a dialogue with an empty chair, pretending to speak with an invisible Obama. The image was created directly after the convention and spread like wild fire. The humor that the viewer takes from the image depends on they’re political views. A democrat will find different humor in the image than a republican would.

The lesson to take from this meme is simplicity works. The image is extremely clever, and it’s power and cleverness derive from it’s simplicity.

Article can be found here: http://sproutsocial.com/insights/2012/07/avoid-twitter-mistakes-brands/

In this article author Anna Washenko writes about four general mistakes that are important to avoid if you use twitter as a tool for your brand. For each mistake she provides an example of how a brand misused, misunderstood, or misjudged the rules and options available with Twitter. The mistakes include tweeting from the wrong account, tweeting rather than direct messaging, spamming rather than promoting, and hashtags going viral for the wrong reasons.

The mistakes these companies and brands made are ones to avoid when I introduce my meme to the world. All the mistakes Washenko mentions are easy to do if you aren’t careful, and since twitter is new territory for me they are all things I will need to watch out for when I begin the meme process.