Just when it seemed like Marvel was the king of cross-promotion with its roster of characters, the Lego company goes one deeper. Because, well Marvel has all the characters in its back catalogue to draw upon, Lego now has not only one franchise, but nearly all the big franchises.

Within days of watching the excellent The Lego Batman Movie at Cobb Theater in Countryside Mall (which you should totally go see even if you don’t have kids) it occurred to me that while it was both a pseudo-side story to the Lego Movie and a Batman movie, it was also...a Doctor Who movie, a Harry Potter movie, and a The Lord of The Rings movie among many others. The list, if you look, goes on—but also includes Gremlins of all things.

And with that set as a precedent: knowing that the studio making the Lego movies can draw upon that many franchises (all at once if desired) and with apparent plans to do so...we can predict the Lego franchise never needs to stop, ever.

Sure, Marvel also plans to keep going for the rest of time as it is, but the Lego movies can go anyway they want—they can take any character and cross-promote—and they don’t even have to keep things neat and tidy for the sake of the timeline.

They established that they can do anything.

And...at any other time in history, making a film series about the cross-promotion of characters from many universes would seem insane, and not feasible.  But this is a different world now. And with the endless wit and charm and a surprising (if a little ham-fisted) moral messages the Lego movies up till now have shown, with no flinching or backing off, they have no discernable reason to stop. And no reason for us to ask them to do so if the quality keeps rising—or even just stays the same.

This is another evolution of the media landscape. Everything connected. Sequels, prequels, midquels, etc. we already had an abundance of, but now, crossovers are possible and encouraged.

I’ll admit I fear, with the sheer level of audience’s knowledge of media’s “grammar” and the proclivity of linking everything to anything we are getting in modern day, we may make it impossible for the next generation to even hope to consume the required media it would take to get the context of any single movie.

I mean, you’ll need like a twelve-week course to catch up to modern stuff. Not including franchises across multiple mediums. No wonder some elderly people are flabbergasted by it all.

But, simultaneously, for what it is, and for however long it lasts: this will be the most intensely creative time in our history as a species. From a less serious standpoint, the very tip of the iceberg is all the joking things we might say about who would win in a fight, or an argument, or “wouldn’t those two make a cute couple.” Those questions will not be hypothetical anymore if the movie studios feel like exploring. It’s like the internet spilled into theaters.

As lofty (and as funny) as it is to say: The Lego Batman Movie of all things is a sign of the next wave of what we will get. Not only the sprawling franchises self-contained to their ever-expanding cinematic universes we’re growing used to seeing. But, also, all the franchises co-mingling and cross-promoting themselves to the point they exist as one, super nerdy technicolor mass.

I suppose this is what we wanted. This is what we’ve been building toward. I never imagined a world where I’d see Batman go against King Kong and Daleks at the same time while everyone was plastic bricks.  But here we are. And everything about it is awesome.

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If you liked this article, you can read more of Brandon Scott’s work over at The Hive, or on his website: www.coolerbs.com

Will the advertising of the digital book ever beat out the physical version? Will we live in a world where real life bookstores like Barnes & Noble on Sunset Point do not exist?  Will all books exist only online and people will only read through devices?

I mean...I hope not. Real books have a magic, and a scent, and a texture which no matter how technological we get, we can never replicate (barring digitally/chemically simulated sensations). Wandering a library, like the Clearwater Library, will always be a unique and nigh-mystical experience for those of us literary inclined.

But, the advertising of the digital book has a lot of bullets to its gun. And, as I finished one such book on my phone a few hours before I wrote this (using iBooks, which is my reference point), I figured it was time to address all the things the digital book has as a perk.

Also, though I am talking about books here, keep in mind a lot of these concepts are not exactly inapplicable (if logically altered to fit) to most products to make them more appealing.

Now, the first of the benefits of the digital book is that it saves your place. It remembers where you are in the book. This makes it remarkably easy to pick up the book at any old time, even if you only have a few minutes, and plunge right back into the story.

The next part, which I don’t feel the advertising for digital book hits as hard on as it should: is the matter of there being a dictionary. If you don’t know what some word means, or even what something looks like (which I’ll admit happens to me a lot when someone describes clothing in a book) you can search right on your phone—like you might for any passing curiosity.

You also get benefits like how lightweight the device is, how you can scroll down—and don’t have to take the time to flip pages—and how having it on your phone, as I mentioned before, makes it so it is always with you anyway, as most people carry their phone on them regardless of their reading habits.

But the part which appealed to me, and made me have a little crisis, was when I realized digital books (despite the advertising again not focusing on it as hard as they could) is that you can shift around the word’s size and even color. White on black, for instance. And this made me read faster. I was chewing through one hundred pages in a day. And I mean real pages, not the shortened ones.

The advertising for the digital book would be right, and it would be smart, if it pointed out how much more efficient it is than a physical book. And though I harbor no intention to stop filling up my personal physical library, I get how someone could prefer the alternative.

And if it makes it possible for publishers to advertise that more people read again—because it really is super easy when you have it on your phone, and sometimes cheaper—then that is nothing but positive for the world.

Reading is good for people. It is good for the brain. I’m advertising that, and so is the new-ish technology. And that is something worth writing about. Even if it makes me somewhat uncomfortable.

Because stories need to continue to live. For the sake of everyone.

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If you liked this article, you can read more of Brandon Scott’s work over at The Hive, or on his website: www.coolerbs.com

The point of many of my articles is to give attention to the effective and positive PR certain groups manage to garner through clever methods. And, I’ll also, in most of those same articles, talk about the fringe potential or active controversies of those same effective PR methods.  

Well, now we are on the big one. The positive and negative aspects of this topic are so huge it would, and could, take multiple articles to talk about—but a lot of this you should already know and understand just by being a person in the modern day. So, there’s no need to go over it in extreme detail.

Because I’m talking about the internet. Not that that wasn’t obvious from the title. But, seriously, the internet is a beehive with a lot of stingers and honey.

PR is how the world perceives you. And everyone perceives the internet. It’s not a company, it’s not even a single entity, but we all brought it into our lives and we can’t live without it now.

If we were hunting for the biggest success story of anything...well, ever, then the internet fits the bill to a tee. The world fully warped by its existence, can’t get larger than that.

The internet changed how people live, think, and understand their environment. While our attention spans and memories might grow weaker, we now have the collective expertise of all human knowledge always right there, interconnecting us. Being ignorant of something, anything, in the post-internet age is a willful act of ignorance.

To not know, is to not want to know.

But, of course, that leads to problems. PR or otherwise. Now, let me clarify: the internet could produce spiders from random monitors every twelve days, and it would still not stop being used. We literally cannot live effectively in this world anymore without it. Doesn’t matter if you work at a restaurant like Kara Lynn’s Kitchen or even at any of Clearwater’s public libraries.  But that does not mean it does not have problems. You can’t go into someone’s brain and steal data (yet anyway), for instance, but take someone’s passwords... and well...

Since we let technology be a part of our lives, we live with the tradeoff of having dangers which come with our lives being somewhat digital. Which can be scary.

But, instant communication, collective human effort toward a goal regardless of geographical location, and an intense amount of storage space, among many other benefits, makes the PR too great for the internet to falter—ever.

We have a lot to learn from the internet—and it will learn from us as well once artificial intelligence is up and running efficiently. And one of the best lessons we are already getting is humans, as social creatures, desire the connection to other people perhaps above all else. Any product which makes that more possible is likely to have a lot of want and need for it—as humanity somehow feels less and less “really” connected because of the lack of physical contact inherent to digital spaces. Somewhat paradoxical, I know. But that’s what people can feel sometimes.

Anything a businessperson or layman can come up with which aids and promotes interconnectivity on the internet (or in other places) holds power, and if not too many deviants use that newly created connection to do harm to others during its initial run, you have an automatic PR boost. So many people are trying to make the next Facebook or Twitter for this reason—and of course to make money. I’m looking at you Snapchat.

But that boost is only nigh-guaranteed if enough people see these efforts to create interconnectivity. Then you get the success. But, luckily, there’s already a platform to get out that sort of thing to a wider audience.  And you already know what its name is.

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If you liked this article, you can read more of Brandon Scott’s work over at The Hive, or on his website: www.coolerbs.com

Everyone wants to be healthy—if the advertising around the internet is any sign. Though, that logical inference was obvious without a banner ad to confirm. But the controversy over what is and is not healthy is so raging and so fraught with pitfalls that we have conflicting answers to the simple question of what will help us live longer.

The fact it includes that aspect, by the way, the bit about living longer, makes it even more likely for people to be irrational on the subject. Add to the cocktail the fact a basic hamburger is often cheaper than a decent salad and you get an economic-laced powder keg likely to explode if you talk to anyone, anywhere, for more than a few minutes about health.

Between Vegans and Vegetarians and Paleo people, and all those who actively dislike those types, you’ll get so many opinions that even when science claims a concrete answer—like the food pyramid—people won’t listen/care.

And, partially, the reason for this problem is that each body is different. It really is. If that wasn’t true, then why so many arguments? Some fad diets worked for a few, but that does not mean it will work for everyone.

But people want the easy answer. And Nature’s Food Patch on Cleveland Street and Whole Foods attached to Countryside Mall both have the inherent advertising that if you go to them you don’t need to think nearly as hard about the things which might be healthy for you. Their food, by design, barely contains any of the boogeymen of the culinary world. And even if GMO is cool for the human body, like some argue, you don’t have to take the risk at those stores.

And being the safe choice is, yet again, great advertising. No one wants the added stress of if their body is doing okay on top of the usual worries of the world.

Sure, some blessed people can eat ice cream on a whim with no lasting weight shifts. But for the rest of us, we are in a constant battle for health. Not always a brutal fight—thankfully—but a fight nonetheless. And the advertising which offers the easiest solution will get the sale.

Now, I am not saying for some scam artists to benefit from this—though some people clearly already are, “snake oil” is a term for a reason—but if you have a way to help people, if you can make some people well, you owe it to your own wallet, and to humanity, to put yourself in a place where they can see you and your product. This stretches beyond health too.  

But, health, especially, is a big enough concern for enough people, that if you really can help, then use the benefits of advertising the world has already to get as many feet in your door as possible.

Until someone works out a machine which can tell what is good for each person, and then dispense food made to that specification, even down to the exact quantity—along with regimenting exercise—this is what we’ve got. Until we live in a science fiction future of organized health, we must rely on the right people, being offered the right reigns, and always being better seen than a scam.

Don’t just do what a celebrity said to do, is what I am saying. And don’t think the restaurants of the world are inherently okay for you because the FDA lets them serve. All that means is that it is edible.

Listen for the right advertising for you.  Being healthy is possible. Even if the world makes it hard sometimes.

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In the modern world, we are a part of branding. We, the people living in modern society, shout our spending habits and brand habits to the world without saying a single, solitary syllable. You, the person reading this, are saying, are promoting, a brand right now, almost for certain. Unless you are the most generically dressed person in the world.

If you are in a public place, look around: and there it is. Logos on shirts, logos on pants, apple-shaped pictures shining on the backs of phones, hats with sports logos, even possibly brand names on wristbands.

We wear companies like we are living advertisement banners. And this is, of course, not limited to the confines of normal brands—it’s also fandoms and media franchises. Over the course of a single day, I saw more Star Wars and Star Trek shirts than I own (and keep in mind I am a nerd).

Even when we don’t wear stuff with specific logos emblazoned like a flag for a company, we still refer to clothing by their brands. At the higher end of the spectrum, we know of styles by the places who make them. For instance, go to Macy's in Countryside Mall, and if you were to ask for just “jeans” you’d have a huge wall to deal with; the communication is understood—if vague. But, say something like “I want Calvin Klein,” and they can lock right onto the exact thing. There is a specific zone for them. Specific shelves.

And the fact we appreciate people, or at least envy, those who can wear the super nice brands, the ones who go around in Gucci’s, is a success of marketing so deep and stunning it’s kind of scary to examine the implications (which could be an article by itself, so I’ll leave it alone for now).

Though, as a disclaimer, funny enough, this sort of brand connection can go too far. Branding can be too successful. Remember that Kleenex, and Xerox, and Google, and Coke, are all brand names which can also be used to mean “a face/nasal wipe”, “to copy a paper”, “to search online”, and “a sugary carbonated beverage”, respectively. They need not mean the same brand as to where the trademark belongs, at least in common parlance.

But, the fashion industry for now does not have this problem. Yet. No one I know of refers to all jeans as “Calvin Klein’s”...yet. We must wait and see: I suppose. For now, though, fashion’s branding success shows to the average company the power that can come from doing one thing well and being known for it. When your name is on the lips of someone looking for quality: that’s a super power. When a shopkeeper is more than likely to know a brand’s name just by (positive) reputation: that’s a sure sign of success.

All companies want this—even if they do not sell clothes. And, to achieve it, the methods are: going for quality, having a visually strong logo, having a catchy clever name, and getting in front of the right target eyeballs. Sell shirts, sell mugs, sell things with your brand on them—and make them known for their use or esthetic. Make a product or a service someone can brag about having—even if you must make it somewhat more expensive to make it look and feel right.

And trust me, like the brands like Star Wars, if you do it well enough, people will become walking, talking, word-of-mouth spreading, preachers of your company’s quality. They’ll advertise for you. They’ll meet your branding goals halfway. Which is already plenty for success.

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