We love our reality television shows, but there’s a new tv show that will be right up the alley of all creative professionals.  If you’re a fan of Donald Trump’s The Apprentice or Celebrity Apprentice, then you will definitely like the new AMC TV series The Pitch even more.  Here you can watch the first episode, S01E01 of The Pitch for free (also viewable on Netflix through May 28th in HD). The Pitch gives us a real life look into the lives of creative professional and process behind landing the next huge marketing campaigns for Fortune 500 companies.

Another Reality Series?
Yeah, it’s another reality series, but we don’t have that many relating to the creative fields.  Sure there are cooking shows, bakery series like Cake Boss, and custom motorcycle documentaries like American Chopper; but it’s not often that we actually get a show relating to our field of marketing and advertising.  That’s what makes The Pitch so exciting!  In the first episode, we see two competing advertising agencies travel to Milford, CT to pitch their ideas to Subway on their next breakfast sandwich marketing campaign.  The two agencies literally are working head to head just to win the job.

What’s Cool
Celebrity Apprentice and The Apprentice are a little similar, because we get to see an entire marketing campaign from brainstorming sessions through the final branding and execution. With the The Pitch, these advertising pitches aren’t made up for the sake of a TV show.  This is the real thing – the big leagues in the marketing and advertising world.  We get to see the agencies’ branstorming sessions, the good ideas, the bad ideas, and even their creative processes. You get to see how they interact with one another.  We even see how some of the creatives’ ideas become things they are personally attached to, while other members of the team don’t always see the value in them.  You also see how hard these advertising professionals have to work, and travel.  It even gives us a glimpse into the private home life for some of them.  Let’s just say it’s not the type of job we’d all like to have.  Unless you like to work to live; working long hours, lots of travel, and

Advertising in a Show About Advertising
Not surprisingly, you have to remember that the point of all television shows and movies are created to also bring in advertising dollars. At one point in the Subway pitch episode you will see them browsing for stock images on the Getty Images website.  Getty is obviously of a traditional stock agency (non-microstock pricing) where iStockphoto is their microstock collection.  Not surprisingly enough, at the end credits, you’ll note that it says “promotional consideration by Getty Images and iStockphoto”.  Talk about a great advertising opportunity, because ever single advertising/marketing/graphic designing creative type (at least that I know) is going to be watching this show. Getty is smart to have added this paid product placement, but it would be nice to see if we could also see behind the curtain to when the ad agencies actually purchase from microstock agencies, as well.  We probably won’t, because that is what the promotional consideration Getty has paid for will mask.

Let us know what you think about The Pitch.  Leave a comment below, and please share this post!

“There is a problem parsing the package” is the error message you might get when trying to sideload apps on your new, shiny Kindle Fire.  Here’s why I think it happened to us, and this is what we did to fix it.  This post is for Kindle Fire users; the rest of you can move along (unless you want to be bored, or if you enjoy absorbing useless tech knowledge).

First of all, for those that might not be aware, you can sideload apps from the Android Market on your Kindle Fire.  Just about every app will work, due to the fact that the Kindle Fire tablet runs on the Android OS.  The problem is, the Amazon Kindle Fire app store doesn’t support all of the Android apps found in the Android Market.  I don’t know why they do this.  Maybe it’s due to the fact that the Kindle Fire’s hardware is slightly different, but it’s pretty annoying.  We wanted to put dropbox on my wife’s Kindle, just like we can run the app on our Android phones.  Back to the story.

We backed up a copy of the apps we wanted to transfer over, by using Astro file manager (a free app in the Android Market).  This placed a copy of the .apk files (from the programs we wanted) on the SD card, in a folder named backup/apps.  That’s how to get the .apk files for your Android apps.  Don’t trust downloading them off some shifty website on the web.  Copy them from your Android phone using this method I just described.  So next, we just had to plug the phone into the computer with the cable, copy the files to the PC, and then over to the kindle (via data cable).  Another method, which is a bit easier, is simple emailing the files as attachments to an email account you can access on your Kindle.

The first .apk files we tried, we copied over from the Droid X.  No beans… it didn’t work at all.  We got the dreaded Parse error “There is a problem parsing the package”.  The first thing that popped in my head is, “I bet the Kindle runs on an older version of Android than the Droid X does.  Let me try copying the .apk files from my own phone, the LG Optimus V.”  So, I did exactly that, and the rest is history.

When you get the dreaded parse error on your kindle fire or nook, try copying .apk files from an older Android phone or device.  That’s what worked for us, so maybe it will also work for you.

My super brief mini review of The Kindle Fire:  It’s a pretty reasonably priced tablet, for all that you get.  Priced around $200 USD, it’s a little smaller than the iPads, and yet big enough to read on.  They made it to be book sized.  It’s reasonably fast, and the battery lasts a really long time.  Although you have to jump through a few hoops to get almost any Android app to run on it, it’s no more than a 5 minute process to do so. Don’t worry – you don’t have to root your Kindle Fire, to sideload apps. I’m not personally a tablet person (give me a solid laptop any day) but my wife really does enjoy the thing.  I’ve used it a handful of times, and can tell you it’s very user friendly, and easy to learn how to navigate.

For those that are looking to advertise their blog or website to increase traffic and brand recognition, they just might soon realize that internet advertising almost always costs an arm and a leg.  Not everyone has a huge budget for facebook, google adwords, or other banner advertising services.  Thankfully, there is a brand new free ad banner exchange called Miloads.  I gave it a shot a few months back, and it has generated some really decent traffic.  All you have to do is sign up, and then embed the tiny bit of code in your blog’s sidebar widget.  That’s it!  If you look at our lower right hand column, you’ll see the layout we chose (there are a variety of shapes, sizes, and customization options).  Having used facebook and google advertising in the past, I can honestly say it’s very similar.  You can customize your banner designs and ad content text just like the others.

It takes no more than two minutes to get everything up and running.  When you log in to the Miloads website you can view each of your ad campaigns, track your traffic, and see which ads are getting clicked on the most.  Anyone else who runs miloads on their website will be advertising for other users on the Miloads network, so your ads will appear all over the internet, instantly.  With over 2 million unique ad impressions already, Miloads is definitely an ad banner exchange that will get your ads viewed, and clicked on.  Our website has already had close to 1150 clicks and over 176,00 impressions, in just 2 months.  I’m very impressed thus far.  The statistics will continue to increase and improve as time goes on, as more and more users sign up; and the ad banner network’s reach will expand even further.  There’s no cost, so you have nothing to lose. Try out Miloads today, and see this powerful little link exchange tool can do for your website.

The Good

Plasma TV’s have come down so much in price over the last few years, if you haven’t made the switch over to widescreen or HD yet, now is the time.  The Samsung 51″ PN51D450 Plasma TV is not a full 1080p set, but you might be fooled into thinking it was.  The actual resolution is 1360 x 768, so you’re really only losing 300 or so pixels in height as compared to the 1080 model (which costs about $150-200 more).  I decided that instead of a 42″ for around $450-500 this 51″ was way more television for the money, at the price I paid.  I couldn’t be happier with this plasma TV.  It seems just as crisp and sharp, with vivid colors as the 42″ model.  There doesn’t seem to be any loss of quality do to the increased size. Even DVD’s playing via the component cable hookup on my old 480p dvd player look amazing.  Once I pick up a blu-ray player or PS3 that will upconvert them to 1080, they should look even better.  The digital tuner in this TV, and in all Samsung televisions is incredibly strong.  I don’t even Read the rest of this entry »

Looking for a great gift idea for yourself, or the photographer in your life?  Here are some cool gift ideas I’ve spotted that are sure to make any photographer smile wide.

#1.  Camera Lens Mugs Cups and Thermoses $15-25

Whether you’re Canon or Nikon, there are all sorts of mugs and thermoses made out of retired or dummy lens shells!  How cool are these?  Very.  And at $15-25 at focalprice (with free shipping) you can’t go wrong.  With stainless steel lining they won’t be drinking out of plastic or anything else that is toxic either. You can usually find them in the 24-70mm and 70-200 focal ranges.

#2. I Shoot People T-Shirt – $17.95

Do you get it?  Hardy harr harr.  It’s still hilarious.  And yes, I actually do own one of these   I’m just mad that my size Medium shrunk in the dryer (should’ve gotten L or XL).