We found yet another success story for the FREE offer as a more than viable business strategy. This tale wil also show that ideas don’t always come from reading the business section. Part of the Sunday morning routine in the Savannah office is to read the New York Times while eating brunch and undoing all the healthy eating that has been practiced Monday through Saturday.

We always read the Women’s Sports Section, aka, the Styles Section. There, we find out what fashions have been spotted on Manhattan streets, how to mind our P’s and Q’s and see if any long lost friends have taken the matramonial plunge. There’s also usually a few interesting other stories sprinkled throughout.

This week, we learned about the rush to build apps for the iPhone. Apparently, (we wouldn’t know since we’re not cellphone geeks) one can buy all kinds of apps (games, ski report finders, a program that will fog up your screen with steam) for their phone. There are thousands upon thousands of these apps which means that thousands upon thousands of programmers are furiously coding and hoping that their app will be the next big thing.

From the story, The iPhone Gold Rush, we learned about Ethan Nicholas and his app, iShoot (we don’t know anymore about it than it’s name). Here’s what we found most interesting…

When the iShoot app was launched at $4.99, it sold enough copies to net him $1,000. On the second day, his take of the sales was about $2,000. Day 3, his portion of sales dipped to $50. Apparently, it stayed there for WEEKS.

So, guess what he did? He released a free version of the game with fewer features. Why? Because he thought that a taste of iShoot would get people hooked and cause them to pony up a few bucks for the paid version. Guess what? It was a success!.
The results:
iShoot Lite has been downloaded more than 2 million times.
Lots of people have upgraded to the paid version
On its peak day, iShoot sold nearly 17,000 copies (a $35,000 day)
He made $800,000 in five months

Do you have anything that you can give away as a sample? Anything that once people try they might find out they can’t live without? There are several ways to to this. It might be a free evaluation, that leads to a major consulting our outsourcing gig. Or, something smaller, with a lower price point that attracts a big crowd. Do you have anything that you would like us to post in the blog? Share with our audience in the FREEBIES section? Drop us a line at info[at]oddpodz[com] or leave it in the comments section below. You can also post it in the forum!

by Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva®

Everyday we’all (my stint in Texas taught me that word) experience brilliant and brutally bad advertising. In fact, the average person is touched by over 3,000 dings of this stuff each day.

Some of it is truly powerful and causes us to take action, think, get pissed off or even talk about a brand to our friends. Examples of these kinds of ads will be tagged as Brilliant! and be awarded this shining yellow icon.

Others just really suck. They are cheesy, when no dairy product is being pitched. They are annoying for a bunch of reasons. Or they completely confuse you. Makes you wonder what are the creators thinking?, Were they thinking? These will be classified by us as Road Kill, and sport this dead armadillo logo.

We love ads, especially the compelling ones. And the bad ones, well, they become entertaining stories to sound off about.

In an effort to learn from this vast collection of economic expression and marketing form, Oddpodz Idea Engine Blog is dedicating Wednesdays to “the art, creativity and relevance of advertising.” Each week we will give our three cents and invite yours, too.

So here goes. For our first Road Kill ad.

I am especially sensitive to this one, because, I’m a tennis junkie. Here you have two solid brands Ericsson and Serena Williams. Here you also have some of the worst cropping of body parts. Was everyone on the court and not paying attention to the production quality of this ad?

Moral to this story. You don’t have a good photo to work with? Do a different layout. Protecting your brand means ad policing all communications.

Have you seen any entertaining ads to throw in this gallery of chop, chop there goes a good ad category? If so, send them in.

About the author: Karen Post, a.k.a. The Branding Diva® is an international authority on branding, marketing, and entrepreneurial matters. She is has been featured as a business expert in print publications; on TV, radio, and on Web channels. Karen authored the best-selling book Brain Tattoos, Creating Unique Brands That Stick in your Customers’ Minds and she is co-founder and CEO of Oddpodz.com, an idea engine for creative professionals and business. Her work has benefited large and small organizations in the United States and around the world.

…to us!

We launched the first version of our Oddpodz site and our blog in 2006. We will have to put together a retrospective. That will be a hoot!

We are thisclose to being able to rattle off another list of accomplishments (and the aforementioned retrospective), so we’ll save that for another time in a week, or so.

In the meantime, and for a trip down memory lane, here’s last year’s “birthday card” to ourselves.

We launched the very first version of our Oddpodz site, our Odditeaz line and our blog on July 1, 2006. We can’t believe another year has gone by. We also can’t believe how much we’ve achieved. We’re not bragging or nothin’ (yes, we know, nice grammar), but our team of THREE has done A LOT in a year. Just one example, we pulled this giant rabbit out of a tiny hat.

Some other brief highlights:

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by Zo

That is the question. Some of you are asking it now, some have already answered it.

In these times of uncertainty - will I have this job next week? will I have to take out a third mortgage to pay for my daily commute to the office? can I get a third mortgage? - some choose to explore making the jump from working for the man to working for thyself. We found a couple of links with things to consider when making such a decision. They are also worth perusing if you’re already out on your own.

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by Abe Sauer

One great advantage to being located, however temporarily, in the Midwest is that each smallish neighborhood, even in a large metro, has unique characters that come out of woodwork the longer you’re there. One great place to learn about your local economy is through the SAVERS! CLIPPERS! envelopes stuffed full of hilarious little coupons and ads that come in my mailbox every week or so.

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Ah, to feel the freedom of the grass between your toes and a refreshing breeze in your hair in the metaphoric sense of what it must be like to produce an ad for Playboy magazine.

None of that “You can’t show nipples.” or “That pun is insulting.” As is demonstrated in a scanned page after the jump. SFW (but probably not safe for intellectualism.)

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It’s always the small losers that people forget about when they do something silly like, you know, demand freedom from repression for the largest population on earth.

If China’s government stops being a repressive authoritative regime, how are (mostly) crappy indie movies like this going to find their fawning, self-effected Yupster audiences?

I stole this little board holder from a Blockbuster. They owed me though for having convinced me to rent Juno.

by Zo

We’ve had a lifelong fondness for horses and have always wanted to go to Churchill Downs on that first Saturday in May to see the run for the roses firsthand. With it’s history, tradition, excitement, glamour and mint juleps it’s an experience we’d like to experience one day. We don’t have tickets, so here are some other ways to get in.

1. Pony up lots of dough to get yourself a farm full of horses. Ridiculously expensive, bound to break your heart at least once. But, you get to have all those horses! How about this beautiful property (horses NOT included).

2. Hide under a hat. Do you think she snuck in? Regardless of whether or not we make it to Kentucky, we would love one day to have a hat from Suzanne Millinery. Or, a career like the company’s designer and owner (read her bio. Very cool).

3. Get a job at the track. There are some drawbacks though. Size is an issue if you wish to be a jockey. And, “most of these jobs require extensive practical training and if you’re interested you should get as much experience as you can. Even if it means volunteering to help out a local barn until you find paid employement.” (Read more here). So, you gotta love it and really want it.

4. Get a job at Yum! brands. I suppose someone in marketing figured that Kentucky Fried Chicken and the Kentucky Derby were a natural fit and a super cross-promotional opportunity?

5. Enter the Churchill Downs public drawing. We’re a little late for the April 5th public drawing for fans to purchase two reserved seats. If you get selected, you can expect to pay anywhere from $214 to $414 a pair. Next year!

6. StubHub. We think there are still some left.

7. Dress up like a horse, sneak in the starting gate and RUN. This was in Santa Anita. And, was probably a race for people. This competitor chose to dress like a horse. But, we think it’s worth a shot.

by J. Ring

Part of our morning routine is to read blogs and other news sources for tidbits of information to pass along to our audience.

This post over at the Creative Generalist made our day. It is a great example of creativity and context. We’re not going to explain it here. You must read for yourself.

After we finished laughing, we got to thinking about how this masked furball’s adaptability to business these days. We’ve all heard the reports of gloom and doom and a recession. After you’ve dodged the falling pieces of sky, take a look at the products and services that you offer. If markets and margins are shrinking where you’ve been doing business, perhaps it’s time to reinvent your messaging or offering to take advantage of new opportunities. Believe it or not, they’re out there. We will be keeping an eye out for them and posting them here, too.

Please, if a raccoon can do all this imagine what you can do!

image source: wikipedia