Invented in Utah (IIU) is hosting a competition for inventors from all over Utah to compete for the best invetion idea. From the sounds of it, the winners will get help developing their idea and will get a lot of exposure too.

The neat thing about this competition is that you don’t have to have a prototype so really anyone with a good idea should enter … it’s your change to make your idea a reality.

In marketing, it’s a lot less expensive to follow a trend than to create one. If you are creating a trend, you are most likely having to spend a lot of your marketing budget just educating people on your product and if you still manage to get time with them you may be able to sell them. On the other hand, when they know what the product is and it’s a rising trend, you are way ahead of the game from an ROI standpoint.

The best trend spotters out there find something that a lot of people are getting unusually exited about, identify it, name it, and capitalize on it.

The five tips on how to spot the latest trends… (more…)

Matthew Roche pointed out that Google is recognized by brand professionals as the most influential brand worldwide and Honda apparently wants to find out if this is true - even when it comes to selling used cars. Search for “Honda Used Car” on Google and click on the first sponsored ad.

Honda is hosting the page, honda.googlepages.com, on GooglePages. The predominant brand is not a beautiful Honda car, its the Google logo. And note the messaging… Google [search box]… [H] Certified Used Cars? Congratulations to Honda on an ingenious marketing idea! And the implementation of Google maps is smooth, simple and very useful! Someone at Honda needs a pat on the back.