D.C. United Embraces Bloggers

Add D.C. United to the short list of businesses that understand how to leverage Internet 2.0. United took to the Internet to generate buzz for Cosmo's Bachelor of the year candidate and United defender Bobby Boswell. Kyle Sheldon, communications coordinator for United, sent this message to many a blogger:

Hello soccer fan -

For those of you who haven’t heard, Bobby Boswell of D.C. United is one of 50 candidates for Cosmopolitan magazine’s Bachelor of the Year award. For those of you in the blogging world, it provides for a great opportunity to a) spark interest amongst your female readers, b) make fun of Bobby and c) link a couple of pretty funny videos Bob and I put together for it all. The links to the videos are below, as is the link to Bobby’s Cosmo page.

For Cosmo: http://youtube.com/watch?v=urjk5N51Yvc
Bloopers: http://youtube.com/watch?v=BqA1S85kZ_U
Also, folks should go here to vote…

-Kyle

So he loses points for "Dear soccer fan" and you can definitely tell he hasn't scrounged around for links before. Erroneous! Erroneous on both counts because United got the idea right when they went after the bloggers. They even threw in some self deprecation, which is essential to any self promotion on the Internet.

Soccer isn't all over the TV or widely mentioned on talk radio. So die-hards have sought refuge on Internet message boards such as BigSoccer. D.C. United's marketing efforts really cater to those fans. United's intelligent marketing effort is pretty good, I don't think Bobby Boswell will win Bachelor of the Year - that's for the ladies to decide.

Props to Throughball for the hot tip.

Kansas City Advertising Blogs

During last week's blogging sabbatical, my bloglines was riddled with unread blogposts. As I tried to sort through them all, I realized that many of the blogs I follow came from the Kansas City area. So I thought it only fitting to give a little shout out to all the locals. Here's my list.

American Copywriter - Creative directors John January of Sullivan Higdon & Sink and Tug McTighe of Callahan Creek give us something to nibble on between podcasts. Not only are they AdverCelebs, they're also the shit. Seriously.

Smoke & Meers - If you're looking for a good story with an advertising moral, Sam Meers is your man. He runs the show over at Meers Marketing Communications and always has a good take.

Shake Well Before Use - This young lady from VML has burst onto the ad blog scene with force. She's got the attention of some serious bloggers, such as Steve Hall over at AdRants and Hidden Persuader, so you'd better get a little piece of Ariel's RSS love.

Carpe per Diem - More Meers' love from copywriter Dan Duff. He writes about marketing, but more importantly, he used to drive the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile.

K City - It's not really about advertising, but Bruno Pieroni from SHS has an awesome comic strip. Plus, he's Brazilian, so I get style points by merely mentioning him.

If you didn't make the list, hit me up with an email, leave a comment or threaten to take me and my blog down. It's all welcome.

To the Three People Who Actually Read This Blog

I sincerely apologize for taking last week off. I got busy and the blog got neglected. But I've got lots of stuff to put out there, so I'll try to make up for it this week.