s+j has the fortune of having our own Girl Scout in residence. Heather’s niece drops by our offices every winter so we can all order our Girl Scout Cookies. And while we still prefer having Ava stop by the office to make her pitch, here’s an interesting article about the Scouts taking their tactics online. Girl Scouts Venture Online To Market Their Cookies.

Conflicted on whether to splurge on that new Flip? Read an online review and make your decision. This seems to be the trend in consumer behavior – certainly in my own. Nielsen’s survey of 25,000 Internet consumers reported that 90% of consumers poled trust recommendations/referrals from friends and acquaintances while 70% trust online consumer reviews making user generated content one of today’s most trusted forms of advertising. What are your customers saying about your product online?

Yelp, a local social networking and user review Website,  is rapidly gaining traction as an online review site that mixes in a social aspect and local search to make the user reviews more believable and relevant. The Website allows businesses to have a listing. This can be a good or bad thing for your business. If customers have a good experience they may talk about it, unfortunately they will talk about it if their experience is bad. Here are 10 Easy Ways to Supercharge Your Small Business’ Yelp Presence. If you love Yelp, check out their fan club.

The annual ADDY Awards were held Friday, March 12th in Reno, Nevada.

The results are in. Drum roll please…

Gold Addy Award
Collateral Material Category
Client: HD96 Publishing / North Lake Tahoe Marketing Coop

Gold Addy Award
Newspaper Advertising Campaign Category
Client: Tahoe Fire and Fuels Team (non-profit)

These entries will now automatically move on to the District ADDY Awards (Northern California, Northern Nevada)

Plus 4 Silver ADDYS

We all feel very proud to produce award winning work for our valuable clients.

Advertising Association of Northern Nevada

American Advertising Federation

Apple says its Wi-Fi version of the iPad will be available on April 3rd with a 3G version available later in the month. According to a CNET poll, this is what you are thinking:

I’m waiting for more features – Webcam, multitasking, etc.	34.8%
Not April 3, and not ever.	26.7%
I’m fine with Wi-Fi only, so yes.	16.7%
I’ll wait for the 3G version later in April.	12.0%
I already have an iPod Touch, thanks. No need to supersize.	9.8%