Universal Wilde Blog

Little by little, Coca-Cola machines are popping up in restaurants around the United States. Near where I live, it’s in a Kelly’s Roast Beef –you pick the soda you want and dispense it yourself. Seems pretty ordinary, right? Not exactly. This carbonated think tank, the Coca-Cola Freestyle, was made in 2009 and is revolutionizing the way we pick our soda flavors. You have options; in fact, you have over 125 different flavored Coke products – Sprite, Canada Dry, Coke Zero, etc. to choose from. Pick a Coca-Cola brand, choose from a myriad of flavors, and taste your new concoction. Oh, and expect your mind to be blown – I haven’t had a bad tasting soda yet.

Big data: it's not just for business purposes anymore. It's now being used to predict the weather, too, with the introduction of new databases and technology ventures in the meteorological field.

Five things we’ve seen (and liked) this week:

Many companies this holiday season have opted to include QR codes in their marketing efforts. Target decided this October that they would tag the Top 20 Toys of the holiday season with QR codes and have them be available via the Target smartphone app. The best part about this? If you ordered one of these toys using the QR code, they were offering free shipping. Talk about making your holiday season less stressful!

Last week we talked about what spam emails were and how your emails can – unfortunately for you – end up being classified as spam. This week, we’re going to tell you how to get rid of some of your spam and how to avoid making your emails spam-tastic!

What is spam, exactly? If you asked this question to someone before the age of the internet, they’d tell you it was some concoction of ingredients – some meat, some unidentifiable things – that was put on the shelves of the supermarket. Turns out, their answer is really similar to what spam is in email form.

John Sisson—personalized communications expert and President of Universal Wilde— talks about best (and worst!) practices for using data in direct marketing.   Watch the video to discover keys to creating a successful, data-driven direct marketing campaign today!