Our support didn’t end there. On the day of the Mutt Strut xiik launched the Web site for the 2011 Indianapolis Poster Pooch Contest, a contest that will determine which Indianapolis-area dog will be the face of next year’s Mutt Strut.  Dogs are voted on by their human companions, who can log onto the site to vote for their favorites. The winning dog will be decided by having the most votes when the site closes at midnight on Friday, July 9.

Indianapolis-area residents can submit photos of their adorable pooch that can be voted on by the public. To register your pooch, you must make a minimum $5 donation and each vote is a $1 donation. Be prepared to enlist your friends and family to vote for your dog – the current leader has more than 300 votes. Have no fear, though, because voting is still open for several more weeks so there is plenty of time to get a rousing campaign for your pooch going. You can even use the site to solicit support from your friends and family by sending emails encouraging them to vote for your pooch.

And if you don’t have a pooch, surely you know someone who does, or you enjoy looking at photos of cute pooches. Log on today and find your favorite – you’ll be helping provide a second chance to the animals at the Humane Society of Indianapolis who dream of one day being a poster pooch (or kitty!).

Whether you want to show off your pooch, or see others’ favorite pets, we hope you join us in supporting this great cause.

Tech geeks billed Lala as a music rental service, where you could “buy” music for online-only play for 10 cents per song. However, I’ll admit that I only use Lala to access my personal music collection and check out new music – I never made a purchase or rental through Lala.

I am sure there are other services like Lala out there–I do love Pandora for its streaming music, but I’m going to miss having my own music at my finger tips. Guess it is time I resurrect my iPod from its role as an exercise assistance device.

This isn’t the first time Israel has given Apple the cold shoulder–Apple’s iPhone was not allowed in the country until December of last year over similar concerns.

So far 10 iPads have been confiscated and the owners have been given the choice of paying a storage fee until they leave the country or shipping the iPad home on their own dime.

Apple has delayed the international launch of the iPad by one month due to overwhelming demand here in the U.S.  Apple says the international version of the iPad will comply with the lower Wi-Fi standards and are hopeful the iPad will soon proliferate across Israel.

Not since 1972 has a hometown team been in the Final Four and man is Indianapolis pumped: fans have crowded Monument Circle for pep rallies, a giant blue “B” has been formed in the windows of the Indianapolis Power & Light building downtown, and yard signs line Meridian Street, their stakes in the soft spring soil.

Although references to the movie Hoosiers have been tired for some time now, it’s hard to not feel a twinge of goosebumps. After all, basketball is a hallowed institution here in Indiana.  Butler has long played a role in this tradition because its basketball arena, Hinkle Fieldhouse, was the largest basketball gym in the nation for several decades in the middle of the 20th century.

Tonight, Butler will hopefully make more history. In classic David v. Goliath fashion, Butler is taking on basketball behemoth Duke for the NCAA Championship.

In honor of our Butler Bulldogs, we present their fight song:

We’ll sing the Butler war song,
We’ll give a fighting cry;
We’ll fight the Butler battle–
Bulldogs ever do or die.
And in the glow of the victory firelight,
Hist’ry cannot deny
To add a page or two
For Butler’s fighting crew
Beneath the Hoosier sky.

The xiik geeks would like to congratulate the Bulldogs for making it this far in the tournament and wish them good luck against the Blue Devils tonight!

Why London, you might ask? Ever heard of a little something called Her Royal Majesty? Apparently, she’s a big fan of the work we did for the Humane Society of Indianapolis’ Mutt Strut (April 25) and wanted us on her newest endeavor: her Facebook Fan Page.

This is great news for our youngest employee, Josh Corken, as he will get the opportunity to relocate overseas and manage xiik’s newest office.  Hopefully Josh will be able to put everything he learned from xiik’s “Talk Like a Brit Day” to good use. However, if I remember correctly, the only thing he knew how to say was “bugger off.

We wish Josh the best as he searches for a flat and prepares to “mind the gap.” Stay tuned for progress on the project and updates on Josh going international with no return flight home. For now, pip-pip, cheerio and all that jazz!

Although I consider myself a good driver (minus the slightest case of road rage), I am also one of millions of people driving Toyotas all over this country. Every time I jump on the Interstate, I wonder if this will be the day that my car decides to play Toyota Roulette and careen out of control.

In college, I had a friend who liked to drive down a big hill on campus with his windows down and yell “NO BRAKES!” just to freak people out. It was pretty hilarious. And although I still laugh at that prank, I never thought I might have to revisit those words in a real-life situation. It’s been in the back of my head as one of those things I might resort to if my Prius decides to become a death trap.

Beyond the obvious engineering lapse, my biggest complaint is that Toyota has utterly failed to communicate with car owners about these problems. A few months ago, I received a letter telling me that the floormats were to blame for “acceleration issues” and that I should remove them. However, in the several instances of out-of-control cars that have been publicly reported, most experts point to the computerized braking system as being the probable cause. Toyota also says the safety issue is only limited to later models, although the cars that are affected seem to run the gamut from 2005 to current models.

Like any company enduring a PR nightmare, Toyota needs to learn the tough lesson that the truth is always the best defense. In the name of both safety and salvaging its brand, Toyota needs to admit the full scope of its failure and not mislead its consumers with half-information. While they might lose money in the immediate future, coming clean and taking full responsibility will help build confidence and trust in the company again.

In the meantime, perhaps Toyota will consider changing their tagline to moving forward…and forward…and NO BRAKES!

While there were definitely bright moments in the ads , like the Doritos commercial, where the little boy slaps his mother’s new boyfriend across the face and says “Don’t touch my mama, don’t touch my Doritos,” the overall trend I noticed was far more disturbing – that of bashing and degrading women.

Grandmotherly Betty White was tackled to the ground in a Snicker’s commercial and a short while later Tim Tebrow tackled his mother during the controversial Focus on the Family ad. Men were told that buying a Dodge Charger was the last stand against women dominating their lives and then there are the GoDaddy ads, which are just blatantly trying to sell mediocre Web hosting using sex.

I’m a woman AND a football fan. I know that the vast majority of the Super Bowl ads are not targeted to my demographic, but I couldn’t help but sit and wonder what the sentiment was in the creative agencies this year that determined these were the best ads. Maybe it says something that the best commercials in my mind were those created by Doritos fans, not by major ad agencies. Fresh ideas and fresh content, not more of the same.

When a client or prospective client contacts xiik to develop a Web site, brochure or marketing campaign, one of our first questions is always going to be, “What do you want to accomplish?” We ask this because every company has different goals. It also helps us to learn more about a client. Often, but not always, a client may not have an end goal in mind, but just think they need “marketing.” However, marketing without a purpose is like trying to shoot a target in the dark. If you’re not sure what your goal should be, here are a few things to consider:

• The Status Quo: Think about your company from an outsider’s perspective. If staying objective is too hard to do, literally ask people (not employees!) what they know about you or your company. Do they know who you are and what you do? What you stand for? Is their perception of you positive or negative?

• The Goal: What do you want people to know about your company?

This is just the beginning of the strategy process. Although strategies may take some time and planning to develop, a solid strategy acts as a roadmap for achieving your goal(s). Just like a good coach won’t send his team into a game without an end goal (winning) and a series of plays to achieve the win, a good marketing firm won’t run a client through a gauntlet of marketing options without knowing the intended result. Anyone can shoot an arrow in the dark, but turning on a light always helps with hitting your target.

Bing is offering a tab in their searches for users who type in a food, such as chicken. Clicking on this tab will pull up an array of recipes pulled from recipe sites and databases all over the Web. Not only do the recipes pop up, but the search also allows you to sort by ratings, cuisine and convenience.

I’m not deleting my bookmarks quite yet, but I think searches like Bing can really help the everyday cook have a little more fun in the kitchen.

For more information, visit here.

Evaluate Your Goals
How has your business changed in the last year? What’s 2010 going to look like for your industry? Do current sales meet your expectations? Are you making a compelling case for your product or service to a targeted enough audience? What have you learned? We all work hard every day to keep the little gears grinding, but it’s crucial to take a step back periodically to tweak your overall course. Sit down to restate what you want for 2010, assess what worked in 2009, and imagine how you can shake up those pieces that need more focused attention or an entirely new tactic.

Listen to Your Audience
The best source of advice is often those people you are looking to please the most: your clients. They can offer valuable clues to engage them if you’ll just listen. Now, listening doesn’t involve just our ears anymore; there are many tools marketers can use to better understand their audiences. If you haven’t already, install data metrics & tracking software like Google Analytics on your web site to audit geographic demographics and behavioral patterns of your site’s visitors. What pages keep your visitors’ attention the longest and where do most flee the site. Research tools like Quantcast can be leveraged to get an interesting picture of the internet trends for your target audience. And get on board with digital word-of-mouth by staying involved with social media sites.

Audit Your Methods of Communication
Remember when people used to just talk to each other? Like face-to-face? Yeah, well there’s an increasing number of ways to interact with your clients and the most successful efforts are those that integrate several modes of communication, proportionate to the habits of your target market. Your options these days are in-person, phone, HTML email, your website, ads on other Web sites, social media, and traditional forms of advertising like mailers, print ads, television, and radio. Do you have the right mix? Are the tools you’re using having effect? Are you cross-promoting (i.e. social media links in email blasts)? Is your website too content heavy? Consumers respond more to visually engaging experiences online rather than a page of text. Are there any opportunities to convert paragraphs into interactive media like video, slideshows, etc?

Rethink Your Budget
Some businesses think they should axe their marketing budgets when the economy goes south, but there are more responsible tactics to trimming expenses.  Strong, effective marketing campaigns don’t always mean dropping big bucks.  Consider the return on your investment, which is highly trackable these days. Strategically targeting and communicating with your audiences can help grow your business. Can you redirect resources from an underperforming activity to one that’s working? Is the underperforming activity failing because your approach is not quite right or because it’s simply not a smart way to reach your audience? Ask these questions before making cuts. And marketing cuts may be unavoidable, but the most critical imperative is for you to prioritize. It may take more planning, but as the economy rebounds, your business will have remained relevant and visible in the public eye. And you’ll outperform those less savvy competitors.

Be True to Yourself and Your Business
Be authentic. People are often smarter than we give them credit for and many can see through a false façade. We as consumers appreciate authentic, heart-felt communications. And in this digital age, anyone can try their hand at the latest new-fangled gadget or digital idea; but those who succeed in digital media approach it with careful planning, research and strategy. Does your brand adequately reflect your company’s values and culture? Avoid hyperbole. Sure, find the magic in your company’s story, but don’t over-promise and under-deliver. Good branding (and by extension, marketing) is about defining an identity and purpose of being that everyone can unabashedly embrace. Create an organization in 2010 that you, your employees, and your clients can all be proud of!