The Absolute Truth is a newsletter published by Absolute Marketing Group to assist businesses in marketing their company effectively.

Password Overload By Luke Petterson, Interactive Director

If you have been using the Internet for any time now, you probably have noticed something… you have a ton of passwords and user accounts you need to keep track of!

Twitter, Facebook , Linked-in, Google Analytics, your blog site, your webmail, your online banking – and the list goes on and on.

If you are out there trying to do a lot of stuff on the web, you need a good system to keep track of your passwords. You don’t want to use all your valuable brain power just trying to remember how to log into all your web-based accounts.

In our web department here at Absolute Marketing Group, we have adopted a strict system of logging and updating passwords in a spreadsheet. We never have to worry about what this username was or what that password was. User account information is available to us immediately, when we need it. We can rely on this system to manage our hundreds of passwords with ease.

Now, you probably don’t have hundreds of passwords and web user accounts, but you probably have more than you want to have! What’s the best way to organize them and keep track of them all?

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Whiteboard, How I Love Thee By Jason Jacobson, Project Manager/Writer

I really can’t get enough. Even as I sit here typing away on a blank white page, I can’t help but look over to the 4×8 panel of potential to my right. I encourage everyone that needs to convey a big idea to go out and purchase a whiteboard today. Let me explain why whiteboards are my soft spot.

They force active participation. If the small gesture of pushing a pen across paper can sketch out a short idea, imagine what you can do by dragging a big marker across a giant slate. Standing and moving get the blood flowing. More muscles make bigger movements, so why can’t that logic apply to making bigger, more fluid ideas?

They hold temporary thoughts. I will always have anywhere from two to a trillion ideas bouncing in the dome at any given time. Each leads to its own set of distractions. I’ll go from comparing retention to a wad of gum to remembering the flavor of Juicy Fruit to its big yellow packaging to my old yellow Tonka truck to a real live dump truck and how I don’t much like all this road construction outside. Honestly, in Fargo you get nine months of snow and three months of cones. I think there are only two weeks when you actually can drive the speed limit in this town. See what I mean? Once I put an idea on the board, its safe from being pulled away by the next shiny object I see or personal anecdote I can drum up.

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Billy Mays: An Era Without An Heir By Jason Jacobson, Project Manager/Writer

Billy Mays represented everything I hate about advertising creative and everything I love about advertising principles. Save the occasional Little Giant DRTV program, I fear the pitchmen of the world are doomed.

From a creative standpoint, Direct Response TV (DRTV) isn't meant to be flashy or compelling, but a big part of me always wanted it to be. It is the antithesis of everything most creatives aspire to make. For most, the allure of advertising as a profession is the ability to create the next big campaign. Part of that desire is the drive to outthink, outwit and out-awe your creative contemporaries. When Billy Mays or any other DRTV peddler disrupts the television canvas with rubbish creative, it burns the retinas, attacks the ears and distills the magic of television.

Still, you can't hate Bearded Billy.

Billy’s commercials did what they needed to do – move product. More importantly, they demonstrated the effectiveness of simplicity. While shouting at you with his frenetic delivery, Mays’ commercials were able to show every need his products could fill in 60 seconds or less. Moreover, these spots featured the product in action. Sure other commercials use this tactic, but you have to applaud someone who can effectively sell the steak without selling the sizzle.

But the regime crumbles without Mays.

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