by Nicole Ouellette | Apr 19, 2010 | Marketing Monday
A bit of a break from my normal format, I decided to do a critique of a web advertisement I saw.
The other week, I was looking at Too Cute Tuesday directions on the Instructables website when I came across this ad:
Is that a teenage girl, lying on a bed? I thought I would click through to the website, thinking maybe this wasn’t being marketed to teenage girls.
It doesn’t take a marketing person to see exactly who this site is meant to attract. In cases like these, I hate being wrong.
I know that Zoe Kravitz, the model, is 21 years old and can do whatever she likes but come on. That look. On a bed. Looking like she’s wrapped in sheets )€” until you look close and see that it might be a dress. (This is confirmed in a larger format photograph but still,why did I even have to wonder if she was naked?)
I looked for other people talking about this ad. All I found was a handful of bloggers who sounded like they were quoting a press release about being excited about the new line and enjoying the vanilla and fruity notes of the fragrance. I was starting to feel a bit crazy. Am I getting old and being a stick in the mud about this?
I posed the ad to Facebook, just to see reaction of my friends. Here are a few that reflect the overall sentiment:
My friend Jen, who has a teenage daughter: OMG!!! That is crazy…way to sexualize a 15 year old! Gross
My friend Norah, who is raising a teenage son and daughter: Very tricky raising a daughter with this sort of thing in their face all the time. A bit rough on the sons too.
And my friend Bob, who is a therapist: I’m afraid we’ve become desensitized–being bombarded with this inappropriate stuff all the time. I’m with you…
But this isn’t just about Vera Wang Princess perfume. This is a symptom of a larger problem.
by Nicole Ouellette | Mar 12, 2010 | This Week In Business
Sometimes, I catch myself thinking in terms of black and white. I’m sure this comes from making my own decisions (most of the time rather quickly) as a business owner. “I don’t buy that.” or “I always do this.” The truth is, of course, a little less simple than that but it’s easy to convince yourself one way or the other when you are the only person there is to convince.
I’ve spent this week beginning to really work with other people as peers. And while this is a sign things are growing, it also means this is no longer all about me, and my snap judgements are no longer going to work. Here’s what I’ve been up to this week, besides realizing I’m not the center of my own universe:
The workshop organizing continued.
I apologize to those of you who are probably sick of hearing about Matt and my upcoming workshop. I keep telling myself that the first one is taking so much planning because, well, it’s the first one. We fielded questions over email (and put them in an FAQ on the website, work once use twice I say!); got a few more registrants; and put up a website at
www.onedayworkshop.net. I also created and sent out a press release and
Matt made a Facebook page for the event.
Since three people have registered and a few more have said they’ll come, I think we might actually have enough people to *gasp* break even!
I began life as a paid blog contributor at Almost Frugal.
When my friend Kelly posted that she was thinking of selling her blog, I sent my condolences. Thinking about ending a blog seems (at least a bit) like ending a long term relationship. It takes more time than you’d expect and you care way more about it than you’ll publicly admit as your ego gets pretty tied in. (Full disclosure: I won’t even date a guy who doesn’t read my blog.) And while I haven’t dated Kelly (she’s married and in France), I have been reading Almost Frugal since the very beginning so I was a bit sad about the end of an era.
A few days later, I got an email from her.
by Nicole Ouellette | Jul 17, 2009 | This Week In Business
I spent most of this week finishing a really big project. It’s always interesting how you can be in the middle of something big and wonder if you are ever going to finish. Then, when the due day comes, it somehow seems to come together. Here’s this week at Breaking Even Communications:
The MaineBiz article about me appeared…and I was a ‘cyber siren’!
John (my former boyfriend now friend who had written the initial press release) told me I should be ready for any angle the press wanted to use in the story. He told me I shouldn’t be above using my youth, good looks, being formerly in the newspaper industry, having a family who owns a small business, or other details about my life that the writer may want to expound on.
by Jessica Heck | Jun 17, 2022 | Nicole Reacts
A ranked Forbes 40 under 40 speaker that I have NEVER heard of? Sign me up! I first heard of Natasha on the Cringe-Fluences channel where I saw she had pivoted from Instagram expert to motivational speaker. Does she have 10 million Instagram followers because she is a...
by Nicole Ouellette | Mar 27, 2018 | This Week In Business
We have a series of great ‘and nothing bad happened’ articles. Check out ‘I Bought Facebook Fans And Nothing Bad Happened’ and ‘I Doubled Our Social Media Posts And Nothing Bad Happened’ Last week, in “I Left My Business for A...