Fast Horse is hiring. We’re looking for someone with a minimum of three years advertising or public relations agency experience. Our ideal candidate is smart, creative, organized, hungry and curious. Experience with integrated consumer marketing campaigns is required.

We’ll give an extra-long look-see at candidates who have social media marketing experience, as well as those who have interest/experience in sports (especially motorsports).

Does this describe you or someone you know? Email us at info AT fasthorseinc DOT com.

Editor’s note: This is John Reinan’s weekly marketing column for MinnPost.com. To see the original, go to http://tinyurl.com/6d7kys.

I’ve spent a lot of time in the last year or two trying to figure out new media. But lately, I’ve been devoting more thought to the old media.

Why? The same reason people gawk at a bad accident. The old media have been T-boned by the Internet, and they’re lying twisted and smoking on the shoulder of the information superhighway.

For nearly 100 years, they’ve been at the core of communication in this country: newspapers, magazines, radio and TV.  They told us what was happening in our communities, they delivered our commercial messages, they entertained and informed us.

But the old media went over the cliff a few years ago. Now they’re like Wile E. Coyote, frantically running in place just before the bottom drops out from under them.

The list of cutbacks, buyouts and layoffs in the traditional media just since this summer would take up more space than I have in this post. Gannett and McClatchy, two of the nation’s top three newspaper publishers, each cut 10 percent of their workforce earlier this year — then came back a few months later with a second 10 percent cut. Both companies have lost more than 90 percent of their peak stock-market value. Weekly newspapers are beginning to fold, and at some point, we’ll see daily papers begin to go under.

Time, Conde Nast, Hearst and other magazine publishers have closed titles and cut jobs by the hundreds. Advertising pages are down sharply. TV stations nationwide are cutting production staff — and even, in some cases, high-profile on-air personalities.

Yet despite all their problems, the traditional media remain a critically important piece of both public and commercial dialogue. They still provide the basic reporting that the blogosphere feeds off, and they have a mass that outweighs all but the biggest national blogs and Web sites (some of which are starting to develop their own reporting resources, but that’s another story).

For marketers like me, these turbulent times pose a challenge. How does one set priorities between new and old media? Is it better to focus resources on the traditional media, hoping they’ll find your story or product interesting enough to cover? Or would it be better to create a Web site or an e-marketing campaign, and try to draw people to your message that way?

My view is that the traditional media are still important, and it would be unwise for marketers to ignore them in an overall marketing plan, both for advertising and public relations. But the relationships will be different than they were even a few years ago. Here are some changes I think we’ll be seeing.

Aggregation is more important than ever. Getting your story out through news services and Web aggregators is the best way to get it in front of the most people. That’s always been true, but as individual media outlets cut back their own staffs, they’ll rely even more on newswire and aggregation sources. And in the Internet era, a story that goes out through an aggregator can have long, long legs.

The reporters and editors who remain are harried and worried. They’ve seen colleagues leave or get the ax, and they wonder if they’re next. They’re working harder than ever, yet they feel as if nobody on the business side has figured out how to turn the ship around. Unless they’re within a few years of retirement, they’re probably working on a Plan B for their career.

I’m not yet sure how this translates into practice. In recent years, it’s been common for critics to make dismissive comments accusing the news media of merely regurgitating press releases. Having spent 20 years in the business, I can tell you emphatically that those charges are false — at least, for the quality news outlets I worked at.

But as the traditional media continue to slash their own newsgathering capacity, it’s possible that regurgitating press releases will start to look like a viable option to them.

News nuggets get more attention than in-depth information. With few exceptions, the traditional media — newspapers, TV and magazines — believe that the news consumer is pressed for time and unwilling to digest lengthy items. They’re looking for summaries, lists, nuggets, news of the weird — anything they can slot into a formatted news report. As they rely on fewer people to produce their products, this kind of fill-in-the-blank formatting will be a bigger piece of their overall output.

Local is king. A few major media outlets in the New York-D.C. axis will continue to be important in leading the national dialogue. But in regional markets — even top 20 markets like Houston, Minneapolis and Denver — producers and editors are adopting a relentlessly local focus.

If you’re trying to get their attention for a product or service that isn’t produced in their area, you’ve got to clear a much higher hurdle these days.

Marketers and the news media have always had a symbiotic relationship. But that relationship, which has run in the same comfortable channels for the last half-century, is changing in ways that we haven’t even realized yet.

I think it’s clear that the marketers are going to be less at the mercy of the media. In the old days, there were few options for going around the media gatekeepers. Not so any more.

I don’t see any signs that the traditional media are giving up. Although battered, they’re still fighting.

But Wile E. Coyote never gave up, either — and that didn’t stop him from getting conked regularly by the latest Acme anvil. I’m afraid there are a few more anvils ahead for the traditional media.

I love gassing up my car these days.

My trusty ‘97 Taurus wagon is a great machine. It’s been dependable for 115,000 miles so far. Although slightly battered now, it was a deluxe ride in its youth, with leather seats, a sunroof and all the goodies. And it’s a great highway cruiser, getting about 25 mpg on long trips.

But it’s kind of thirsty around town. I only get about 17 mpg if I drive really carefully, and if I’ve been leadfooted, that figure drops to about 15. So the recent drop in gas prices has been lovely.

I filled up the other day at the SuperAmerica on 25th & Hennepin in Uptown — shout out to SA, my favorite convenience store! The price for regular was $1.90 a gallon. And as I pumped, I watched the gallons tick off and counted up the money I was saving with each gallon compared to when it was $4.

When I finished pumping 13 gallons, I magically had $26 in my pocket that wouldn’t have been there a couple months ago. That will buy me lunch for most of a week, or pay for a couple of my daughter’s piano lessons, or cover my fantasy football losses for half a season.

I don’t believe these prices will hold. In fact, for the overall good of our future economy, it’s probably better that they don’t. The truth is that worldwide oil supplies will continue to tighten in the long term, and we’re going to see $4 gas again. It would be unwise to make plans based on the idea that cheap gas is back to stay.

But I won’t lie to you — right now, I’m lovin’ it.

I believe we’re on the cusp of a dramatic change in consumer behavior. I don’t know exactly how it will play out, but at its core is this undeniable fact: the American consumer is tapped out.

Foreclosures and credit card debt are skyrocketing. The savings rate is zero. The jobless rate hasn’t been this high in almost 20 years. Layaway purchases are making a comeback. Economists are making comparisons to 1929. People are running out of money and they’re cutting back.

This situation won’t turn around quickly. Why? Because the workers of America simply aren’t making enough money. This is not a political observation, merely stating a fact. Wages, adjusted for inflation, are flat or even down slightly over the last 30 years. Meanwhile, the wealthiest people in our nation are raking in amazing sums of money — measured not in six figures, but in eight, nine, even 10.

I always look at the example of Dr. William McGuire, the former chief of United Healthcare. McGuire made more than $1 billion in a 10-year span: an average of more than $100 million a year. Was he really worth that much money? Is anyone? I know such compensation has been explained by pointing to growth in the stock price and the value of the company during his tenure. But that ignores the contributions made by all those United Healthcare workers who weren’t making $100 million a year. Didn’t they have anything to do with the company’s growth?

Again, let me stress: I’m not getting political here. But if the American economy is to thrive, the people who do most of the buying and consuming have to get a bigger share of the pie. To see how that can work, look at the example of pioneering American automaker Henry Ford.

One hundred years ago, in 1908, Ford introduced the Model T. At that time, cars were expensive luxury goods for the well-to-do. Many autos cost upwards of $2,000 — more than the average annual wage of a typical worker.

Ford realized that he could sell more cars if the average worker could afford to buy one. In 1914, Ford announced that he would start paying his assembly line workers $5 a day — more than twice as much as the average factory wage. The news caused a sensation. Now an assembly line worker could buy a Model T with about four months’ pay.

By 1916, Model T sales had more than doubled, to nearly 500,000 cars. And the price dropped from $850 to $360. Other factors were at work; the country was prosperous, the farmers were doing well and the car became a must-have gizmo — the iPod of its day.

But if American companies are looking for ways to turn around their sales, they might start by putting more money in the pockets of their consumers.

A little unintentional humor in the local newspaper. Star Tribune posts a story about cougar sighting, jocularity ensues in the comments. Rowr.

Credit: Tim Knight

We’re happy to announce that some of our recent work has been honored with a Davey Award from the International Academy of the Visual Arts. We received a Silver Award for best logo for The Murals of LynLake, a new apartment development at 2833 Lyndale Ave. S. in the LynLake neighborhood of Minneapolis.

Why the Murals? Because murals are part of the fabric of LynLake. Some of the best art in the neighborhood is on the sides of buildings: Intermedia Arts, Penn Cycle, Fuji-Ya, Robot Love. As it says on the Web site, LynLake without murals is like New York without Greenwich Village.

The developers of the Murals, Turnstone Group LLC and Integrity Management, carefully designed the project to fit into the eclectic, artsy neighborhood, which they describe as “like Uptown before it became Uptown.” The project, with 109 contemporary apartments, is committed to partnering with local artists and businesses.

Congratulations to our designer, Taylor Baldry, for his winning work.

Editor’s note: This is John Reinan’s weekly marketing column for MinnPost.com. To see the original, go to http://tinyurl.com/5egs9b.

I’ve avoided writing about the selling of the presidential candidates, though I’ve been tempted. Now that it’s over, however, I can’t resist doing a campaign post-mortem from a marketing perspective.

I’d argue that perhaps the biggest factor in the race had nothing to do with marketing at all. The September meltdown of Wall Street destroyed Republican credibility on the economy and snuffed out McCain’s post-convention bounce.

And I’m going to leave Sarah Palin out of the discussion. After all that’s been written about her effect on the race, I don’t have much to add.

Still, there were plenty of other areas within each candidate’s control where they either helped or hurt themselves with their marketing strategy and tactics. Here are a few.

McCain’s messages. The GOP candidate began the campaign as the war hero, the maverick. He ended it as the Not-Obama, asking America not so much to vote for him as to vote against his opponent. In the final months, his campaign rolled out an endless message-of-the-week parade, discarding each one as it failed to gain traction: Obama the celebrity, Obama the terrorists’ pal, Obama the socialist.

Despite his recent record of support for Bush administration policies, McCain really did have a long history of independent thought and principled action. But he bailed out on the maverick brand before it really had a chance to build.

The 50-state strategy. In recent presidential elections, Democrats played to their base, hoping to win the true-blue states and pick up one or two swing states. Howard Dean, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, was a strong and early supporter of campaigning hard in all 50 states. He was ridiculed by Republicans and a fair number of Democrats for believing that his party could compete in places like Indiana, Nevada and Montana.

But Obama signed onto the 50-state strategy, which helped the Democrats pick up some surprising wins in conservative areas and forced the GOP to spend time and money campaigning in places where they’d previously been able to mail it in. The Democrats stopped thinking of themselves as a regional brand and started thinking of themselves as a national brand.

Obama embraces technology. The winner broke new ground in harnessing technology to support his campaign. From online fund-raising to viral Web videos to mobile messaging platforms, Obama’s organization was ahead of the opposition all the way.

His supporters supplemented the official campaign efforts with a steady stream of blog posts, homemade videos and text messaging trees.

Stagecraft still matters. Since the Reagan era, Republicans have excelled at setting the scene for their

Credit: Slate.com

 candidates. This year, the Democrats surpassed them. Though GOP bloggers and pundits tried to make an issue of Obama’s acceptance speech at the Denver nominating convention, with its column-flanked stage, it went off spectacularly. An 80,000-seat stadium packed with cheering supporters made for great TV. Meanwhile, McCain countered with a speech in front of a backdrop that looked like lime Jell-O laced with cottage cheese.

The candidates’ personalities played into this, too. I actually enjoy a fiery candidate – it seems more real, more human to me. But it’s long been an article of faith among media theorists that “cool” candidates do better on TV. And there’s no doubt that, among the two, Obama was by far the cooler candidate.

What’s the marketing lesson from the 2008 campaign? Much the same as for any successful product campaign: have a strong and clear message, stick to it and find new ways to deliver it. This year, Obama did just that.

Milwaukee, Wisconsin – Zima, the clear and refreshing malt beverage popular during the early 1990s, recently died, the MillerCoors family said.

After a long battle with challenging malternative segment sales Zima production ceased Oct. 10 and was officially declared brain dead ten days later. 

Born in 1993, Zima was a brand-name “alcohol refresher” and a wine cooler alternative. Zima was named after the Eastern European word for “winter” - which is arguably is the world’s coldest season. Zima was a one-time member of the 1990’s “Clear Craze” alongside Tab Clear, Crystal Pepsi and bottled water but later left the group to focus on its highly anticipated solo career. 

Zima’s popularity peaked in 1993.

Although there was an attempt revitalize the product in 1995 by marketing Zima Gold to young men, as well as a poorly orchestrated online effort to save Zima, the battle was ultimately lost to a declining consumer interest.

Zima was preceded in death by Miller’s Qube and Stroh’s Clash, which are no longer made today. Zima is survived by Smirnoff and Smirnoff Ice.

Service will be at Fast Horse next week: date TBD, invite only, closed casket. Visitation and chips with dip to follow.

We ask everyone to remember Zima by writing their fondest Zima memory in the comment section below. In lieu of flowers you may create a 20 foot glass-shard mural depicting a bald eagle carrying a bottle of Zima in the Minnesota state capital rotunda.

A few buzz words are always tossed into social media conversations. One of the favorites is “transparency.”

Zappos.com, an online purveyor of shoes, handbags and more, is always a shining star noted in social media discussions.

However, for the most part, they are transparent about positive aspects of their company. The corporate HQ typically is represented as a caring culture that lives by their tagline of “powered by service.” The company encourages blogging and twittering by its employees. Even the CEO is an active Twitterer.

One could argue that it’s easy to be transparent during smooth sailing; the challenge lies in public scrutiny during dark times.

Yesterday, at about 3:30 p.m. CST, the CEO Tony Hsieh tweeted “Very emotional day for everyone at Zappos. I’ll be sending out an update later today with details of what’s going on.”

An hour later, he shared “Update on today: Here’s the email I just sent to our employees - http://tinyurl.com/5hp9sf.”

An excerpt:

Today has been a tough, emotional day for everyone at Zappos. We made the hard choice of laying off about 8% of our employees. The layoffs will affect almost every single department at Zappos.”

While it’s impressive that Hsieh shared the company memo publicly, it’s also note-worthy that he shared their benefits:

We are offering to pay each laid-off employee through the end of the year (about 2 months), and offering an additional amount for employees that have been with us for 3 or more years.

In addition, because our regular health benefits cover 100% medical, dental, and vision for employees and 50% for spouses and dependents, we decided to offer to reimburse laid-off employees for up to 6 months of COBRA payments.

Finally, he did not shutter twittering.

I’ve been asked by some employees whether it’s okay to twitter about what’s going on. Our Twitter policy remains the same as it’s always been: just be real, and use your best judgement.

The straightforward handling of this difficult economic situation appears to be another case study in transparency for Zappos. Time will tell, but the first steps appear to reflect their core organizational principles.

Obviously, Zappos is not alone. Countless companies will be dealing with layoffs and reductions. If you’re counseling these companies, what’s your recommendation? Is Zappos a model for all or a special case?

Love her or hate her, Sarah Palin is the most fascinating figure to emerge from this year’s election — aside from, of course, the president-elect. Two months ago, I doubt if 5 percent of Americans had heard of the governor of Alaska. But for the past eight weeks, she’s been possibly the most talked-about person in the country. 

Her term as governor ends in two years. Strictly from a marketing standpoint, I think she’d be making a mistake by staying in politics. I think she should move into the punditry/entertainment nexus. Here’s my reasoning.

• She’s got ready-made name recognition.
• She’s got a large core of devoted followers.
• She’s bold, blunt, energetic and fearless in making her points.
• She’d be one of a relatively few women in that arena.
• There have been few new stars to arise in the conservative punditry firmament in recent years. Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Buchanan: they’ve all been around for a while. There’s an opening for a new voice from the right.
• Her career longevity would be greater.
• Someone is certain to offer her a ton of money.

You could argue that she’s not the brightest bulb on the tree. I’d reply that she’s plenty smart enough to go on TV or radio and give her unscripted views. All she has to do is unleash her id, and I don’t doubt that she’s quite capable of that.

Those are my thoughts. Yours?