From the desk (and BlackBerry) of Keith Parnell

Mickey Mouse tweeted me. Don’t believe me? Look.

Thanks, Disney World, for a wonderful family vacation last week in Orlando. Our family of 19 thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Brand, Family, Social Media, Vacation / Travel Disney World, JASE, JASE Group Marketing & Advertising, Keith Parnell, Mickey Mouse, parnellk63, tweet, Twitter

We are back from vacation and the whole team is refreshed and ready to roll.

Wanna talk social media? Wanna talk inbound marketing? Wanna talk advertising? Wanna talk tech?

Call us - (757) 715-4595.

Email us - info@jasegroup.com.

We’re ready to talk.

Brand, Business, Marketing, Social Media inbound marketing, JASE, JASE Group Marketing & Advertising, Social Media, vacation

The new JASE coffee mugs have arrived. I’ll be glad to share them with 25 of my bestest friends. Creatively tell me why you would want one and I’ll have it shipped to you today.

Brand Brand, coffee mug, JASE, JASE Group Marketing & Advertising, logo

When I’m asked this question, I honestly try wholeheartedly to not have a puzzled look on my face. YES. Of course, your employees reflect you and your organization’s brand.

Everything and everyone you surround yourself with, reflects and represents your brand. These things are the essence of your organization’s brand.

Why am I thinking about this today, you ask?

I passed a car on the road this weekend. A pizza delivery driver for a local franchise of a national chain. The delivery driver’s license plate read, “Rat Lady”. That’s right, “Rat Lady”.

If “Rat Lady” had a local exterminator’s sign glowing on top of her car, or a local pet shop sign prominently displayed, I would not have given her a second thought. But a food delivery service coming to my home served up by “Rat Lady”? I think not.

Brand Management take-away: be aware of and respectfully conscious of the public elements of your organization. Consumers see the tentacles of your organization for what they are (without a chance of explanation or interpretation) and immediately draw their own conclusions about you, good or bad.

* NOTE: This blog article should not be interpreted in any manner that I oppose rats as a pet. I have heard from friends they are very friendly.

Brand Brand, brand management, employee, JASE, JASE Group, JASEzone

Inbound marketing is fun. Inbound marketing is creative. But what makes inbound marketing so special?

First let’s understand what inbound marketing is. Inbound marketing focuses on creating powerful content that will lead potential customers to your brand, product or service line through online methods like searching, referrals, and links from other web entities such as blogs, video and social media communities.

For this reason, inbound marketing can generate quality leads because it focuses on the people that are already interested in your brand, company, and product or searching for your services.

JASE specializes in the perfect mixture of inbound marketing with traditional marketing. By combining your current advertising initiatives with inbound marketing you can lower your total cost of advertising and increase the effectiveness of your campaign.

Our suite of Marketing Solutions & Strategies

Advertising - Online & Traditional, Brand Development & Management, Broadcasting - Radio & Television, Collateral Development, Inbound Marketing, Interactive Solutions, Market Research, Marketing Strategies, Product Positioning, Public Relations, Publication Design, Search Engine Optimization & Management, Social Media, Statistical Analysis, Web Design & Marketing

Relative info: What is Inbound Marketing?

The Basics of an Inbound Marketing Campaign

Advertising, Brand, Marketing, Social Media, Video Advertising, blog, Brand, inbound marketing, JASE, Marketing, marketing campaign, product, quality lead, search, service line, social community, Social Media, traditional marketing, Video

2009 Advertising Apple BlackBerry blog Brand CEO Christ Christmas CIO Coffee with the CEO commercial economy email Facebook God Google IT JASE JASE Group JASE Marketing JASEzone Javelin Jesus Keith Parnell Linux Lord Marketing Microsoft Norfolk Pearl RSS small business social community Social Media social network T-mobile Technology tv Twitter VA Video Windows Wireless YouTube

SEO / SEM 2009, Advertising, Apple, BlackBerry, blog, Brand, Business, CEO, Christ, Christmas, CIO, Coffee with the CEO, commercial, Community, economy, email, Facebook, God, Google, IT, JASE, JASE Group, JASEzone, Javelin, Jesus, Keith Parnell, Linux, Lord, Marketing, Microsoft, network, Norfolk, Pearl, RSS, small, social, Social Media, T-mobile, Technology, tv, Twitter, VA, Video, Windows, Wireless, YouTube

Online advertising allows you to advertise to your customers when they are looking for your product or service. In other words, when they want to buy.

Watch a TV ad, and you’re likely to do no more than make a mental note of the product. Watch an ad on YouTube, and you can immediately search the company’s website.

To learn more about online advertising and how it can add value to your business, contact our team. We’re ready to talk.

Advertising Advertising, commercial, JASE, tv, Video, YouTube

JASE can show you how to make the most of your marketing efforts utilizing a variety of services, not the least of which is Social Media 2.0.

We’ve had several clients ask us about our perspective of the social media landscape. So we developed this chart depicting where we focus our energies.

To learn more about social media and how it can add value to your business, contact our team. We’re ready to talk.

Marketing, Social Media JASE, Marketing, Social Media

What makes a brand so powerful? Is it the decor at your retail store? Is it the commerce selections of your musical CDs or travel mugs? Is it the yummy taste of your coffees and sandwiches?

These are all good questions that a valuable marketing firm understands and has answers that are inately wound in the fabric of their own culture.

To learn more about JASE and how we can add value to your business, contact our team. We’re ready to talk.

Marketing campaign, JASE, Marketing

Do people know what you do everyday and what your passions are? I meet a lot of people while tooling around the Hampton Roads metro area. I also have an extensive network of friends and colleagues on the Internet. And quite a bit I get the question, “what do you do?” or “what is JASE?” 

Have an Answer Ready

Normally I gauge the situation by reading the body language of the person I’m talking to or take into account our environment on how I answer that question. I like to have the first words that come out of my mouth (or type in my BlackBerry) put exactly into context because those are what people are going to remember.

I had just that situation happen this week from a member of our neighborhood’s civic association. This was my layman’s response to his question, “can you elaborate on JASE being an internet marketing and electronic solutions firm?”

We have several service lines that we provide for our clients. Of those service lines and within the marketing area is building websites for companies, non-profits, individuals, etc. Not only do we design and create websites, we help our clients build their “brand” online. See this post on my blog that will explain a little of what I mean. Keep Norfolk Beautiful at the Ernie Morgan Center at Lafayette Park is one of our clients we do this for. We designed their website, host the website and host their email for them.

Also as part of the marketing package, we help our clients with social community exposure. See our social media website here and blog here that can explain a little more about our services in that area. Social media exposure, handled properly and not just there-for-the-heck-of-it, can be very valuable in developing an appropriate personal or corporate brand, not to mention build a very large pool of potential clients. Great advertising! See me in the JASEzone here, on my blog here, on Twitter here, on LinkedIn here and on Facebook here to explain more of what I mean. I’m on those websites and my brand is very clean and professional. Gordy EyeCare is one of our clients we are beginning to do this for.

Two other service lines that we provide our clients are both technical. We have software engineers that do computer programming on applications such as books on CD rental, shipping, inventory, etc. Tape Rental Library in Charlottesville is one of our clients we do this for. We didn’t do their web design, we program the back end order taking and CD distribution system for them.

Then we provide web hosting, email hosting, tech support and computer repair under our JASEtech Support division. We have many, many clients that we do this for including Come2HamptonRoads.com, a real estate website for John Berger RE/MAX, Central Virginia ASA, DennyCorp, Covington Contracting and others.

What about you? What do you do? Do you have various environment-specific answers for your passions?

Brand, Social Media BlackBerry, blog, body language, Brand, Central Virginia ASA, Charlottesville, colleagues, come2hamptonroads.com, Covington Contracting, DennyCorp, electronic solutions, email hosting, engineer, Environment, Ernie Morgan Center, Facebook, friends, Gordy EyeCare, Hampton Roads, internet marketing, JASE, JASEtech, JASEzone, John Berger, Keep Norfolk Beautiful, Lafayette Park, LinkeIn, Norfolk, passion, social community, software, Tape Rental Library, tech support, Twitter, VA, website development, website hosting

Brandon Savage tagged me with writing seven little-known things about myself and then tagging seven other people to do the same. So here goes …

1. I took 3 years of Latin in high school because I had dreams of going to medical school.
2. The name of my company, JASE, is an acronym from the initials of my two daughters: “Jennifer Annette” and “Sydni Elizabeth”.
3. My first (real) job was during the summer at a landscaping company when I was 15. I got fired half-way through the summer because they found out I wasn’t old enough to work. My first (not real) job was delivering newspapers when I was 14.
4. I quit band near the end of my 6th grade school year just before the spring concert because the concert was on the same night as one of my little league baseball games. Yes, my Dad let me decide! Thanks Pop.
5. I played baseball in college. And for a few years made money playing slow-pitch softball.
6. I’m an Eric Clapton F*R*E*A*K! Clapton. Cream. Derek and the Dominos. John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. Yardbirds. Blind Faith. Plastic Ono Band. Delaney, Bonnie & Friends. If it’s Clapton, I can’t get enough.
7. My Dad passed away in 1999 after battling cancer. He is my idol. To most people that know me, that’s not a surprise. But it’s worth mentioning because too many children don’t have role models in their home. I did when I was young. And I’m proud of that fact.

And now, here are the seven people that I tag to do the same.

1. Nicole Blum - blog - twitter - JASEzone
2. Keith Ainsley - blog - twitter - JASEzone
3. Michelle Rogerson - blog - twitter
4. Nick Webb - blog - twitter - JASEzone
5. Rick Whittington - blog - twitter
6. Michael Tefft - blog - twitter
7. Guy Kemp - blog - twitter

Here are the rules:

• Link your original tagger, and list these rules on your blog.
• Share seven facts about yourself in the post - some random, some weird.
• Tag seven people at the end of your post by leaving their names and the links to their blogs.
• Let them know they’ve been tagged by leaving a comment on their blogs and/or Twitter and/or JASEzone.

Time for some fun!

Thoughts band, Blind Faith, blog, Bonnie, Brandon Savage, cancer, college, Cream, Dad, Delaney, Derek and the Dominos, Eric Clapton, Guy Kemp, JASE, John Mayall, Keith Ainsley, landscaping, Latin, little league baseball, medical school, Michael Tefft, Michelle Rogerson, Nick Webb, Nicole Blum, paper boy, Rick Whittington, softball, tag, Twitter, Yardbirds

We all have people in our lives that have looked at us funny when the word T-W-I-T-T-E-R came out of our mouths. And let’s be honest, it feels kind of awkward just to say the word T-W-I-T-T-E-R.

Most proper names in the web 2.0 world are odd, err original. And Twitter fits in that frame.

I started using Twitter almost two years ago. I was very leary at first but now it makes sense to me. The value of my network has grown. My circle is more powerful than ever. And it’s just plain good fun sometimes to connect with friends that I would have never met under any other circumstances.

I ran across this post from Lani Rosalis this week and she reminded me of a video the Common Craft team produced. So I thought I’d share.

Catch me on Twitter here.
Follow our team on Twitter here.

Leave your Twitter name in the comments below and be sure to share your favorite Twitter story.

Social Media Common Craft, JASE, Keith Parnell, Lani Rosalis, my circle, network, Twitter, web 2.0

I hope everyone had a fun and safe (!) New Year’s Eve and January 1^st of 2009. Despite our troubled economy I am excited about the upcoming year.

We have several exciting initiatives on our plate and are underway with integrating social media into almost every aspect of our business and services. Let us show you what we’re doing in 2009. It’s fun. It’s exciting. And we’d love to you have enjoy the ride with us.

Make sure to subscribe to this blog’s RSS feed here so you don’t miss the action. You can also catch me on Twitter and in the JASEzone most anytime to see what’s going on in real-time.

Our JASE blog’s RSS feed is here. And you can follow the whole team in the JASEzone here and on Twitter here.

Thanks to everyone for supporting us in 2008 and we welcome an exciting 2009.

Business, Marketing, Social Media 2008, 2009, blog, JASE, JASEzone, New Year, RSS, Social Media, Twitter

That’s a strong statement. Here it is again, all forms of media will be intangible in 5 years.

That was Steve Rubel’s prediction in the December 1st edition of Advertising Age (print magazine). Steve wagers that, “by January 2014 almost all forms of tangible media will be either in sharp decline or completely extinct in the U.S.”

Tangible media = newspapers, magazines, books, DVDs, boxed software, video games, etc.

He asks that we consider these points:

• The success of Amazon Kindle.
• Random House is making 15k books available online.
• Microsoft’s Xbox is open to user-generated games available online for download.
• Apple setting the tone through its iTunes store with downloadable iPhone and iPod Touch games.
• Netflix offering play-on-demand movies over the Internet.
• Christian Science Monitor closed its print copy and made all content available online regularly.

All forms of media will be intangible in 5 years? Steve makes some good points but not sure I can get behind this. Consider the Pew Research stats we published earlier this week that 35% of surveyed adults still get their news from newspapers. Those same adults are readers of books, readers of Time magazine and Sports Illustrated.

I agree the majority of media and communications are moving online. But not all and completely. Not in 5 years.

Back to Steve’s main point, what does this mean for advertising? It means that online marketing and ad firms like JASE are becoming more popular and in-demand. The expertise is substantially different than owned by conventional ad firms.

Social media and its extremities like gaming, reading and movies online are the focal points of the future and you’ll need a partner firm like JASE to ensure your stability and growth.

Advertising, Marketing, Social Media Advertising, Advertising Age, Amazon Kindle, Apple, book, Christian Science Monitor, DVD, iPhone, iPod Touch, iTunes, JASE, magazine, media, Microsoft, Netflix, newspaper, Pew Research, Random House, Social Media, software, Sports Illustrated, Steve Rubel, video game, Xbox