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Lately, I’ve noticed a trend of businesses simplifying the pricing of their products. For example, McDonald’s fairly recently made all their soft drinks $1, regardless of the size.

Denny’s has come up with a value menu where the all of the items are either $2, $4, $6 or $8. That’s a pretty memorable and catchy pricing scheme (“2,4,6,8, who do we appreciate?”)

Redbox more or less put Blockbuster out of business with their $1 DVD rentals (although they have since raised the price to $1.20). It worked because it was a sticky price that caught on.

I think customers appreciate the straightforwardness and can more easily remember whole numbers opposed to numbers that end in 99. However, for a company who sells higher ticket items like Apple, it might make more sense to stick with the 99s instead of rounding up ($199 for an iPhone, $499 for an iPad, etc.). Psychologically, when the price point gets to a certain range, a simple price doesn’t necessarily translate to a better value; people pay more attention to the first number (the 1 in $199, for example). I think most people usually round 99 up in their heads anyway; it takes an extra step to think about it.

If you run a business, think about your products and whether it makes sense to pursue a strategy of a simple price people can remember or one that ends in 99 (or some other number).

To promote the upcoming Anchorman 2 film, Will Ferrell has been appearing in character as Ron Burgundy on the actual news! On one station in North Dakota, he did the entire newscast. Here is a clip of highlights:

He also appeared on ESPN and interviewed Peyton Manning:

And again on ESPN, he covered a Curling event:

Another thing they’ve done is setup a look-a-like contest called “I am Ron Burgundy” where people enter to win a trip to New York for the premier. An acquaintance of mine, Trey Warner, is winning.

I think both of these are fun ways that tie together to leverage a highly recognizable character and promote a movie about the news on the news.

John Lewis is not as well known in the United States but in the UK, they are basically like a Macys or Nordstrom. They have a tradition of doing great spots for Christmas and this year is no different but I especially love their 2011 Christmas ad. It features a little boy who is slowly counting the days down for Christmas but not for the reason you’d think. It also features a great version of the Smith’s “Please Please Please Let me Get What I Want,” which really helps to make this an emotional and moving piece of advertising; one of my favorites. What are you favorite Christmas ads?

This is an excellent book for folks in marketing, business, education or really any field where you need to communicate an idea and have your audience remember it. The book is written around 6 qualities that make ideas stick:

• Simplicity – How do you strip an idea to its core without turning it into a silly sound bite?
• Unexpected – How do you capture people’s attention and hold it?
• Concrete – How do you help people understand your idea and remember it much later?
• Credible – How do you get people to believe your idea?
• Emotional – How do you get people to care about your idea?
• Stories – How do you get people to act on your idea?

One of my favorites parts of the book is when they discuss the story of Subway’s Jared Fogle. Jared was massively overweight and came up with his own weight loss plan of eating Subway’s veggie and turkey subs (hold the mayo and cheese) for lunch and dinner nearly everyday, and doing some extra walking. The result is that he lost over 200 pounds. A university newspaper wrote about the story, which caught the attention of a local Subway franchise owner, who in turn contacted Subway’s ad agency. They were excited about the idea but couldn’t get Subway’s marketing director on board (“I’ve seen that before. Fast foods can’t do healthy.”) The lawyers also saw potential liabilities in making weight loss claims to the public. The idea seemed dead but the agency persisted, created the spots for free and convinced Subway to do a small region test. The ads were a success and were rolled out nationally, which lead to several TV appearances for Jared, including Opera. The campaign has continued for the last 15 years and Jared has appeared in over 300 TV spots. The takeaways are:

1. Subway’s “7 subs under 6 grams of fat” was an good idea but it didn’t stick nearly as well as Jared’s story did. People won’t usually remember statics or facts but they remember good stories.
2. The franchise owner and ad agency recognize a good idea when they saw one. Other folks heard the idea and thought of all the reasons why it wouldn’t work. If you believe in an idea, be persistent.
3. If the local franchise owner wasn’t reading the paper, he wouldn’t have seen the idea. Pay attention to what’s going on out there. You don’t have to always create a great idea yourself, you just need to be observant so you can recognize them when they are in front of you.

I highly recommend this book. You can learn more about the book and it’s concepts at heathbrothers.com/books/made-to-stick/.

Check out this clever billboard ad produced by Ogilvy UK. When an airplane flies past the billboard in Piccadilly Circus, a sensor is triggered to display the actual flight number, where the flight is coming in from, along with video footage of little boy pointing up the airplane as it flies by in perfect timing. What a great way to utilize technology to engage the audience.

Arcade Fire’s new album, Reflektor, was released a few weeks ago and debuted at #1, selling 140,000 copies. This time around, the band cut deals with Capital and Universal Music Group, in addition to working with their indie label Merge Records. There massive album launch included several elements. One of those was partnering with Google to create this interactive video.

They also promoted the release through cryptic street art in various cities, which featured the date and time of a performance they did under the name “The Reflektors.” This performance was recorded and televised as “Here Comes the Night Time,” a late night post-SNL special which included cameos from several respected actors and comedians. It was quirky, weird and fit the band’s new sound, which they’ve described as “Haitian Voodoo meets Studio 54.”

A few days prior to the release, they also posted a “lyric video” of the entire album set to the 1959 film, “Black Orpheus”. They’ve since taken it down but you can still see the section they recorded for the song “Afterlife.”

Finally, for their recent appearance on Jimmy Kimmel, they chose to perform at the iconic Capital Records building.

For an indie band, Arcade Fire have come a long way. For their fourth release, they pulled out all the stops and went big, which ended up paying off. Read more about their album launch here.

To promote the upcoming Olympics in Russia, Moscow created a machine that gives you a subway ticket after doing 30 squats. What a fun and interactive way to engage people and promote an athletic competition.

Read More at Mashable.

Today the Make a Wish Foundation give a 5 year old with leukemia the best day in the world: they made him Batkid. It’s a pretty big deal. They sent Batkid (accompanied by a full size Batman) through San Francisco in a Bat-Lamborghini on a reenactment-quest to save a woman tied to railroad tracks, stop a bank robbery by the Riddler, and find the Giants mascot who was kidnapped by the Penguin. There were about 15,000 people who signed up online to be part of flash mobs to cheer him on. The Mayor of San Francisco (Gotham) gave him the key to the city. Even President Obama gave him props!

It’s great to see happiness brought to a child who is suffering. As a marketer, the takeaway lesson is that if you do something big that’s worthwhile, what happens is people notice, get excited about it, and get behind it. With so many people involved, it made the event that much more special and something that caught everyone’s attention.

You can read about it and see more pictures at Mashable.

This airbag-style bicycle helmet was invented by two Swedish women. I think it’s pretty amazing. Hopefully they can eventually bring it down to a more reasonable price point (right now, they go for around $600).

Read more about it here: http://jalopnik.com/swedes-develop-invisible-bike-helmet-1460189477