Yesterday was a day for remembrance and reflection.  We all remember where we where that fateful day on September 11, 2001.  Some of us were at work.  Some of us were at school. All of our hearts were with New York City. We will never forget.

Like most Americans, I spent Sunday morning watching the 9/11 Memorial coverage and solemnly reflecting.  But Sunday afternoon?  Sunday afternoon was all about the football.  It was the first Sunday of regular season NFL and it doesn’t get any more American that that, does it?

Considering the large audience that was watching, it’s the perfect opportunity to promote your brand. Some advertisers chose to use this time to pay remembrance and respect to that horrible day.  It’s a fine line.  How do you show respect without making it seem self serving?  I feel like State Farm knocked it out of the park.  I was at one of my favorite watering holes when it came on during the Giants vs Redskins game and almost everyone in the place was singing along. “Concrete jungle where dreams are made of.  There’s nothing you can’t do.”  Well done, State Farm.

Check it out for yourself and see what you think!

There are many tools I use when I travel, but I never thought that Foursquare could help me find a hidden gem in the middle of a 7-acre casino.

As I was committing my Foursquare check-in upon arrival at The Cosmopolitan on a Sunday afternoon, a tip popped up suggesting that I look for the “secret pizza place on the 3rd floor.”  I dismissed it and didn’t think much about it.  However, on Monday night (ummm.. Tuesday morning I guess I should say.  Who keeps track of time in Vegas?!?) after some gambling and free cocktails I convinced my friend to go hunting for said pizza place.  She made fun of me for 10 minutes straight while she followed me down the hallways of the hotel.  She said I was silly for trusting some stranger on the internet.  I told her never to doubt the power of social media and to just humor me and play along for a few minutes.

Sure enough we stumbled across a lounge area.  Skeptical friend spotted a guy holding a slice of pizza and he directed us to this non-descript hallway and said to follow that to the end and we’ll find it.  There it was! Large New York style pizza slices for $3.50!  The bottled water in the hotel was more expensive than that, so this was quite a gem of a place.

After questioning the 3 guys behind the counter, I discovered that the place wasn’t so “secret” any longer. In addition to being on Foursquare, I’ve also discovered it on Yelp and a few other sites.  There is no signage in the hotel whatsoever mentioning it, and the guys behind the counter said that sometimes the line is so long that it’s a 30 minute wait.  I can only think that the power of social media had something to do with that.

I spend many an evening engrossed in my Google Reader.  I read all of my favorite blogs, check out my friends’ shared blog posts and comment on them. We have some great discussions on everything from fashion to political commentary!  However, I think I may have found a new site that is going to battle for my attention!

Enter Pinterest.com. Pinterest defines itself as a site to “catalog the things you love.”   I just started playing around with it last night and I’m already in deep, mad passionate love!

You set up different “boards” in whatever categories you’d like and then you “pin” items to a board. Pinterest makes it easy to do this by providing a “Pin it” link that you can drag to your bookmarks tool bar.  Once you find something you love and want to pin, you just click on the “Pin It” link and you are able to grab the image and pin it to your board.  For example, I have a “Products I love” board.  On that board I have pinned everything from my favorite eyeliner to the food my dog eats.

The most fun part of the site is the social media aspect of it.  You can follow your friends and see their favorite items, make comments and even re-pin their items to one one of your boards if you choose to.  Similar to the Google Reader, its fun to see what is catching my friends’ eyes on the web.  Crazy enough, I learned about Pinterest from a Google reader buddy of mine that had shared it.  I commented that I loved the idea and she promptly sent me an invitation to join the site.

Right now, there seems to be a waiting list unless you know someone that is already a member. But I have a feeling if you sweet talk your favorite Mistress of the Multitask, she might send you a personal invitation to join.

I've heard that in a down economy, lipstick sales rise.  It’s called “The Lipstick Index.”

The theory is that when women aren’t able to splurge on much, they still want to buy themselves something pretty and special.  Lipstick, even at a higher price point such as Chanel or Chantecaille, is a manageable splurge for most women.  It makes you feel glamorous and pretty before you even put it on your lips.

The high end department stores totally get this and make it work to their advantage.  They make buying that $30 tube of lipstick a whole experience.

From the shiny glass and chrome beauty counters, to the attractive sales associates, it’s all meant to stimulate your senses and make you get out your wallet.  You feel fabulous and spoiled.

If you are having a hard time imagining this, think about Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman.  Just try walking into the beauty department at Sachs 5^th Avenue and walk out of there not buying something.  They know our type and see us coming a mile away!  When you leave there clutching your tiny bag, you don’t care that you just spent your entire week’s grocery budget on a small tube of colored cream.

I’m pretty sure they saved all the stinkers for the 4th Quarter. Maybe they thought everyone would be too drunk by then to pay attention? Maybe I would have been more entertained if I had been drunk? Too late for that now, so let’s get started with the reviews so I can get my Glee on.

Bud Light – Dog Sitter
There always seem to be two common themes in Super Bowl commercials that I absolutely hate. Those would be talking babies and animals that take on human characteristics. Both are just creepy. I’m pretty sure I’ll have nightmares about this one.

Cars.com – The Reviews are in
Yes, the reviews are in and it’s not pretty. Talking cars, really? I don’t like it when people burp loudly, so I definitely don’t want to hear a car doing it. Talking inanimate objects aren’t quite as bad as talking babies or animals, but they came close with this one.

Pepsi Max – First Date
I actually kind of liked this one. Was it sexist? Maybe so, but not any more so than the dumb Go Daddy commercials. This was another amateur commercial that was a part of Pepsi Max’s “Crash the Super Bowl” contest. As a side note, I actually thought the amateur commercials were just as good, if not better than, the professional ones this year. Nick didn’t like the amateur shot Cheetos commercial with the sucking finger, but it cracked me up! In fact, at the party I was at they hit rewind on the DVR about 4 times to keep watching it.

Bridgestone – Carma
Yet another commercial with an animal that wants to act like a human. What is this one doing? Throwing up gang signs? If I was the guy in this one, I’d be running for my life. Creepy!

GoDaddy.com – The Contract
Don’t get me started on these GoDaddy.com commercials. I’m offended by the fact that they assume that everyone that needs website hosting is male. I feel the same way about beer commercials. I am a woman and I drink beer and I may happen to need a website one day. Can I get some love?

Limitless – Movie Trailer
Finally! The commercial gods decided to smile upon the ladies in the audience. Hello, Bradley Cooper! I didn’t comment on any other movie trailers, but this one had it all. Car chases, sex, money, a slammin’ Kanye West tune, Robert Deniro and did I mention Bradley Cooper? I’m sold! Can I buy my ticket now?

Sketchers – Break up 2 Shape Up
A sweaty, breathy Kim Kardashian dumps her trainer for her Sketchers. Oh, I get it. If I wear Sketchers Shape Ups, then I’ll have a butt like Kim Kardashian’s! Riiiight, and I guess you also expect me to believe that was really Joan River’s body in the GoDaddy.com commercials.

Well, that about does it. Mostly misses in the 4th quarter for me. Maybe I’m a tough cookie to impress? The have the largest audience all year, and they are spending millions of dollars for a 30 second spot. We mostly get the same thing year after year. I feel like these commercials should just flat out knock my socks off, but they didn’t. At least the 4th quarter was a great one as far as football goes. Congrats to the Packers!

I have mad love for Google.  I really, really do.  It’s the kind of love that I would marry it if I could.  Lately I’ve been thinking about what I did before it existed.  If I wanted to know an answer to a question, then I would go and pull out my mammoth encyclopedias, make a trip to the library or I kept asking people questions until I felt like I had a good enough answer.  These days you ask someone a question and they’ll refuse to answer you and then ask “Is your Google broken?” or they’ll send you this link.  I’ll admit that I’ve done both of these.

I have a friend who never uses Google.  When she asks you a question and you tell her to Google it, she refuses.  Her iPhone will be sitting right there, but she will never pick it up and look up her question. Now this is not a dumb girl.  In fact, she’s quite smart. She says that all that information that Google spits at her is just way too overwhelming and “what’s wrong with asking questions anyway?”  You know what?  She’s right.  There is nothing wrong with asking people questions. Maybe the ease of “Googling it up” has made us all lazy?  Or is asking people questions until you get an answer and refusing to Google it yourself lazier?  Getting a quick and easy answer is great, but is it always better?

Of course, you are probably thinking “why doesn’t Tracey just Google it?”   So, I did!  I found that Nicholas Carr has already asked this question back in the summer of 2008 in an article written for The Atlantic.    His article is not only about Google, but the internet as a whole.  While I think he is paranoid in a lot of his thinking, I also think that he makes some valid points.  I’d love to know what thoughts other people might have.

Sponsoredtweets.com is making it easy for your favorite B (or C or D) list celebrity to make an easy buck with very little effort.  For a price you can have your message Tweeted by none other than Kim Kardashian.  At over 5.25 million followers, she definitely has a lot of people’s attention.

You’ll have to call to inquire about the more famous of the Kardashian sister’s cost, but younger sister Khloe, at a little over 2 million followers, will cost you almost $3,000 for a single tweet.  ONE tweet.  That’s 140 characters.

According to the list, Heidi Montag, Audrina Patridge and Lindsay Lohan are just a few of the celebrities that are willing to name drop your product for you.   The Generation X’ers reading this will remember Soleil Moon Frye.  She may be better known as Punky Brewster.  At 1.5 million followers, her tweets go for $5,850. each.  Seriously.  I couldn’t make this up, people!

Do these prices exceed your advertising budget?  If so, don’t worry.  Danny Bonaduce is a bargain at $29.41 per Tweet.

While in Denver for the Great American Beer Festival, I noticed an emerging trend in the Craft Beer industry.  Cans!

Maui Brewing Company and Oskar Blues Brewing are two breweries that only package their beer in cans.  As a self-professed “beer geek,” I must admit that when I first heard this I turned up my nose.  All I could think about was the horrible, cheap canned beer that I drank in college, and how it had that metallic after taste.  After chatting with the folks at Oskar Blues during the fest, I now have a different outlook.

Some of the benefits of cans over bottles are that they are less expensive, easily recycled, and cheaper to ship because they take up less space and break less during transport. They also chill much faster than bottles, and probably the best benefit for consumers is that they prevent light from getting into the beer and causing oxidation.  In addition to all this, the modern aluminum can has an interior coating that keeps the beer from having that metallic taste that we all remember from back in the day. I can personally attest to the fact that the beer in their cans is very tasty!

So, how does the craft beer industry spread the word that canned beer is better than bottle?  It’s a similar situation to that of the wine industry when many wineries started turning to screw caps over cork.  Screw caps always had a negative association as only being on a cheap product. Boone’s Farm, anyone?

However, the opinion on that is now changing and the wine industry is starting to see more of an acceptance of it.  I think the brewer’s best plan of attack is to educate the consumer.  The Craft Beer industry is all about education of their product.  Since they don’t have the big advertising dollars that major breweries have, they often send sales reps, or even the brewers themselves, to pubs to sit and chat with the customers and educate them on what a craft beer is and how it’s made and what sets it apart.

That strategy coupled with a superior product, has worked well for them so far. Large volume U.S. Breweries have seen a decline in sales, while craft breweries saw over a 10% increase in sales last year. In my case, the education strategy worked.  I’m now a huge fan of Oskar Blues beer (come to Kentucky, please!) and am sold on packaging beer in cans.  However, you still won’t catch me drinking a Keystone Light out of one!

Google will gladly take suggestions for what doodles they should create. You can even create your own fan doodle and submit it.  This year they sponsored a contest for grades K-12 where they picked one student doodle to be posted on the home page for a day.  The winner received a $15,000 scholarship, a new net book computer and $25,000 technology grant for a computer lab for their school.  Not too shabby!

This is a pretty cool recent one celebrating Agatha Christie's birthday:

We talk about branding and the importance of it a lot here on UnderCurrent.  In most corporations the logo is something that is sacred and should not be altered.  Not at Google. They have found a fun way to incorporate change and engage their users while maintaining their brand and image. Everyone knows that multi-colored logo, but many people, including myself, look forward to what the next doodle might be.  Google has always approached things a little bit differently and people have come to expect this of them.  We wouldn’t want them any other way!