Happy Holidays

Attracting YouTube Parodies - Reports Tom Blackwell of Canada's National Post, "In what may be a first for the federal government, Health Canada has posted its new anti-smoking ad on the You Tube Web site, with the unusual hope that Internet surfers will make fun of the spot." While mainstream media seeks copyright infringement details on YouTubers, the Canadian Government is alternatively pushing parody. Parodying smokers is an easy and good opportunity to make cigs not cool. Advice to YouTube Marketers: find a bad habit your product solves, produce a YouTube video mocking the habit and publicize contests to see who can parody that habit best. Then market your product with the YouTube video

Big Buicks In China? - the Buick brand looks set to sell more cars in that country than in the United States, according to Automotive News. Why Buick's interest in the Chinese and the Chinese interest in Buick? Reports MSNBC's Roland Jones, "While it has seen its status fade here in the United States, the longstanding American brand has never lost its reputation in China. And GM has managed to build on that status, selling vehicles under four major brands — Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac and Saab. Marketing Advice to Buick: Try to get your marketshare back Stateside as well.

"On-Demand" Brands - "They really set the stage for the opportunity we have today--it's the Google and Yahoo and eBay--they did the heavy lifting," said Marc Benioff, chairman and chief executive of on-demand customer relationship management software company Salesforce.com to ZDNet Asia. Benioff paraphrasing Isaac Newton--said his company had got to the stage it was at because "we are standing on the shoulders of giants". He added: "Venture capitalists aren't funding software companies anymore--you have to come up with a concept of Web 2.0 and that is a leading indicator that the future is on-demand." On-Demand Marketer Advice: If the future is "on-demand" ask yourself if your brand is on-demand too. Does your brand offer widgets? Can a person adhese an identity to themselves and roam the long-tail of your website shopping for the goods they need?

Milk Marketing - a new nonprofit group will take "pre-competitive" research -- research that hasn't been brought to market [about milk] -- and function as an information clearinghouse to get the research to companies that could use it commercially. "We want to take the best minds in the industry to see if they can come up with ideas that we can then take to manufacturers to see if they can use it in their businesses," said Don Schriver, executive vice president who helped start the new organization. "We want to get ideas out that may not be shared fast enough." Marketing advice to the DFA: First of all, produce a YouTube video of someone actually drinking milk - that is something unique in itself amidst all of the soda drinkers these days