The food industry might be one of the most obvious places in the world today where nature can be unnatural. We buy packaged fruit juices made from concentrate, vegetables that are genetically modified, and packaged goods that, more often than not, contain a plethora of additives that we have no notion of how to pronounce.

Indeed, if there’s anywhere that nature is unnatural, it’s in what we eat, which is why this little experiment from Brazilian creative agency AGE Isobar is so fascinating. When tasked with the concern that not enough consumers knew that their product was the all-natural juice they crave, Camp and AGE Isobar set out together to make an impression.

Their process was simple, but the results were attention grabbing.

Google is promoting a stronger community and higher quality content on YouTube by creating a marketing ambassador program. 

Here's how it works. Small businesses with a range of products/services and objectives are selected by Google to become "YouTube Marketing Ambassadors". Selected reps attend a two-day summit where top executives discuss the tools that can help small businesses leverage online marketing even more effectively. Ambassadors are rewarded with a badge on their YouTube channel and retail storefront, and are featured on the YouTube homepage. They must then share the love by mentoring a non-profit group of their

Providing increased information on a product or service, leveraging brand-affiliated representatives and tools when it makes sense and incentivizing the sharing of knowledge are great ways to increase usage and loyalty. Whether in-person or online, offering helpful advice lets your users achieve improved results that can positively affect the quality of your brand.

On Saturday, Red Bull founder Chaleo Yoovidhya died of natural causes in his home country of Thailand. As the world’s 250th richest man, Chaleo held a 49% stake in Red Bull as well as countless other financial pursuits such as a hospital and a winery. His determination and knowledge was called upon by political parties and his business acumen from being a self made man was nationally famous. He was an innovative and perceptive marketer, building his brand from a small knock-off energy drink into a lifestyle product that sold over 4.6 billion cans last year. There's a lot than can be learned from numbers like that, but what really shines in such a great man's history is not his recent success, but how he made it there in the first place.

It all started in the 1962 when Chaleo, a pharmaceutical manufacturer, created an energy drink prototype called Krathing Daeng, or Red Bull in English. The drink was modeled after a similar Japanese product called Lipovitan-D, but instead of heading to the rich and wealthy city epicenters to market his product, Chaleo went into the countryside. By using bicyclists and locals who distributed samples to truck drivers and other low wage workers, he was able to get the drink into the people's hands who would champion it. The effect was tremendous. By starting in an environment that wasn't over-saturated, he was able to create brand loyalists with little to no advertising cost. These kinds of tactics are popular in emerging brands today, but in the 197...

As long as there was a society, there was a message being relayed to the masses. Marketing conjures up the ideas of graphs, charts, and the occasional cheesy phrases, but in the graph "History of Marketing," the author considers marketing as any means of communication. In the Neolithic Era, humans drew on walls to promote their tribes to individual communities. In Ancient Egypt, conversations were a way to endorse items. And even now in the Digital Age, we write on virtual "walls" to build buzz around products.

[via: HuaMarketing]

Whether or not they realize it, every consumer has been exposed to product placement in entertainment. My favorite example of this is Pizza Hut in the early 90’s. From Wayne’s World to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Arcade Game, Pizza Hut had presence in all the best places. Product placement today is most prevalent in on-demand programming (Netflix), sports and movies. Did you know Iron Man had 14 brand partners?!?

During “The Importance of Branding in an Era of Payments Convergence” session, Pete Hottelet of Omni Consumer Products, shared a plethora of information on branding and product placement. One of the most interesting marketing tactics he discussed was defictionalized products. These are products that have made the leap from fiction to real life.  Products from television shows and movies are now becoming products you can actually buy.

This seems to be the opposite of product placement. Rather than putting your already existing product within a show for increased sales, take a non-existing product from a show and make it something consumers can purchase. Some examples include: Ben & Jerry’s Schweddy Balls, True Blood beverage, and Cartman’s famous Cheesy Poofs.

Another marketing...