The Chevrolet SS Survey

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The Chevrolet SS falls into the large sedan category of automobile. This category is also referred to as a full-size sedan, family sedan or large car. The large sedan has four doors with 4+ seats. It has a fixed roof top and full-sized rear windows. It contains the engine in the front, two rows of passenger seating in the middle and cargo/trunk space in the back. The Chevrolet SS has taken this further by making it a high-performance automobile with a high-performance engine, brakes and suspension. The interior is much higher end with many features being standard that are options on other sedans in its class. These higher-end standard features also mean a higher base price for the vehicle. The Chevrolet SS is the only car in this class that makes most of the typical upgrade options standard features. The only additional choices a customer may make are color, transmission, power sunroof and a full-size spare tire. This survey is to determine whether or not the many standard high-end features are valuable at the higher price tag or would the customer rather these features remain options with a lower entry price for purchase.

Deadline for response is February 12, 2017 @ 11:55pm ET.
Thank you for participating. Any additional thoughts or comments are appreciated and may be added at the end of this survey. 

1.  When thinking about purchasing a large sedan is fuel economy in a V6 engine or the speed of a V8 engine more important?

  1. V6 – Fuel Economy
  2. V8 – Speed

2. When thinking about purchasing a large sedan is the option for cloth seats important?

  1. Yes
  2. No

3. When thinking about purchasing a large sedan is an option that includes dual zone climate control, heated and ventilated (cool air) seats important?

  1. Yes
  2. No

4. When thinking about purchasing a vehicle is an option that includes keyless entry, keyless ignition and the ability to remote start your vehicle important?

  1. Yes
  2. No

5. With 1 being least important and 10 being very important when thinking about purchasing a vehicle how important are standard driver assistance package features such as forward collision alert, a head-up display that projects driving information on the windshield, lane departure warning, a rear-view camera, automatic parking assist, blind spot monitoring, and rear cross traffic alert?

1      2      3      4      5      6      7      8      9      10

Comments:

Personal Theme Songs

lime-twist-borderHow many of you have had theme songs? I’ve had several different theme songs throughout my life. Sometimes it’s just a song I can relate to or it has to do with a project I’m working on or it may just be a song I like. When I went thru the Goldman Sachs 10KSB program Eminem’s “Without Me” was my theme song. A little edgy but just what the ear-worm doctor ordered. I would hum that tune in the back of my head and it helped me to present with the internal mojo I needed.

Music speaks to us and thru us and often tells its story by metaphor and interpretation. The tune and lyrics can make us happy or sad or determined or positive or realistic or reflective or a number of other feelings.

Yesterday as I was driving a ½ hour to keep the warranty current on my car Spectrum XM radio played the song “Ain’t No Man” by The Avett Brothers. “Wow!” what a great song I thought. I want to hear that again.

Technology to the rescue… I verbally asked Siri to open Spotify (my son just talked me into getting a Spotlify account) and play that song and other songs by The Avett Brothers. It was awesome, I played that song three more times before I got to the car dealership. Once at the car dealership I had almost two hours to kill so I looked up the official video for “Ain’t No Man” on YouTube. Hmmm, great video too. Just to take technology a bit further I looked up the lyrics on Google Play Music to make sure of all the lyrics.

After doing my research I have a new official theme song to start out 2017. I hope all y’all enjoy it as much as I do!

Make your light shine!

#keylimebrands   #aintnoman   #avettbrothers   #personalthemesongs   #newmarketingtwist   #afreshtwist   #makeyourlightshine   #letyourlightshine

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The Cost of Technology

Sometimes I feel that my 3 children and I spend too much time on our mobile devices and we all get caught up in looking at the screen. I have been over to a friend’s home and actually took a photo of everyone on their devices and no one talking. The same thing happened over Thanksgiving at my parents’ home. Everyone was on their devices taking a break from visiting. It did create some new engaging conversation once the conversation picked back up. It used to be the newspaper or a magazine, now it’s our phone or an iPad. While I wonder if we are missing out by staring at the screen it’s all things in moderation.

However, on the flip side, as a parent I absolutely love that I usually (as long as they respond and they know that’s important!) can find out where they are and what is going on and get answers to questions immediately. The immediate access is great. The instant communication is priceless. I also know that my kids have access to call for help or dial 911 immediately if needed. The benefits far outweigh the cons for me and I am finding new ways to engage with my children in our evolving digital world. I find it amazing that I let my 14 year old go to school with an $869 iPhone! I do though and he does use it to communicate with me at a moment’s notice.

What are your thoughts on the pros and cons of our current-day technology?

#emergingmedia, #costoftechnology, #parentingtoday, #keylimebrands, #newmarketingtwist, #wvu619

YouTube. The Ultimate How-to Guide and More.

bottlesOf all of the different social media platforms YouTube is is one of my favorites. Why? Because it has everything and can be incredibly functional. I sometimes feel that while I love my friends and keeping up with them I am not making productive use of my time on Facebook and Instagram. With YouTube I can see the latest political news, other news, counter that news with a bit of comedy, store my son’s singing career and build his video portfolio, and get the latest how-to information on any subject under the sun with the latest one being how to drill holes in glass bottles!

It’s a bevy of information on thousands of topics. If I am trying to figure out how to do something I typically YouTube it first to see if there is a video out there to walk me thru completing any task I need to do.

What is your favorite social media app and why?

#youtube, #learningvideos, #socialmedia, #emergingmedia, #keylimebrands, #newmarketingtwist, #wvu619

 

The Care and Feeding of your Digital Child the App

mobile-application

Over the years I have had several clients come to me wanting to develop an app for their business. Typically, digging deeper, some had a very functional idea(s) while many really had no idea what they truly wanted to accomplish but just felt that they should have some type of app.

Let’s assume now that the company you work for does have a functional app or 3 or even more! Forrester Research did a study in 2014 with e-business professionals and found that only 25% feel that they keep their app up to date enough to meet their own and customers’ demands. Interestingly infrastructure services rather than budget was a bigger contributing factor in not being able to keep up. Additionally the more platforms and devices it tried to support the less likely it was to be up to date.

Most companies use either a third party or some type of middleware to develop their apps as they don’t have the native resources in-house to develop. This makes sense to me in that a business should be focused on what it does best and let other companies who are best in their field develop what they do best. update

But with the IOS updates coming at rapid speed it is difficult to keep up. I am now starting so see this new error on several of the apps on my phone and many of the apps won’t work at all.

Multiple operating systems, screen sizes, devices and manufacturers are all contributing factors in the inability for apps to keep pace with technology updates.

From a business perspective a company must be committed to the care and feeding of the app so that it can grow and remain successful in the ever-changing digital environment. The new technologies need to be embraced with the infrastructure and budget to support it.

#digitalapps, #emergingmedia, #keylimebrands, #newmarketingtwist, #wvu619

Sources:
Krill, Paul (2015) Marketers Can’t Keep Up With Updating on Their Mobile Apps retrieved 11/29/16 from http://www.infoworld.com/article/2900655/mobile-development/marketers-cant-keep-up-on-updating-their-mobile-apps.html

Social Media and… Depression?

While social media connects and reconnects us with people from our entire lives whom may live thousands of miles away now but a 2015 study by UPMC (University of Pittsburgh Medical Center) presented by Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/us) actually revealed that heavy social media users are three times more likely to suffer from depression. They conducted research with 19-32 year olds and tested it with 11 different social media sites. They found that those who checked their social media more than 30 times per week and spent over an hour a day on social media were 2.7 times for likely to suffer from depression.

It is important to note, which I also find interesting from a testing study that they call this a cross sectional study and doesn’t address cause and effect. This essentially means which came first the chicken or the egg? Were these people already naturally more depressed and got on social media or did they get more depressed and develop “Facebook Depression” thinking that their lives are not nearly as exciting as those presented on social media.

Could this become a spinning vortex of being depressed and getting on social media to connect which only makes the person more depressed as they feel their own personal life doesn’t measure up?

In many instances social media can help combat depression especially for those homebound. I also know many people who are not really on social media and all of them that i know who are not on it seem to be very happy and well adjusted. I believe we will see many more tests along this line coming in the future.

#socialmediaanddepression, #emergingmedia, #keylimebrands, #newmarketingtwist, #wvu619

Sources: 
Lewis, Kayleigh (2016) Heavy Social Media Users Trapped in Endless Cycle of Depression retrieved 11/29/16 from  http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/health-news/social-media-depression-facebook-twitter-health-young-study-a6948401.html

UPMC (2016) Social Media Use Linked to Depression Among U.S. Young Adults retrieved 11/29/16 from http://www.upmc.com/media/NewsReleases/2016/Pages/lin-primack-sm-depression.aspx

 

 

The convenience and risk of public WiFi

I admit it… sometimes, well several times, I have chosen my place to get coffee based on their WiFi access. WiFi access is a luxury (necessity) many businesses have to offer to lure in their customers. The hackers love this access too.

It’s okay to surf the general information on a public WiFi, things you would let anyone see. It’s not okay and actually quite risky to access your personal data, private passwords and any financial information.

According to Digital Trends (digitaltrends.com) here are the top three things to watch out for on a public network…

  1. Man-in-the-middle-attacks: they basically jump in and take over and access information between your internet device and the end computer/server you are accessing
  2. Malware: This basically gives the user access to everything on your device including files, photos, camera and even your microphone to eavesdrop – WARNING!
  3. Sniffing: It monitors network data and can provide packet information. It’s something that is often legal so beware.

The best way to protect yourself is with a VPN (virtual private network) but that isn’t often realistic. Accessing your private data in public is essentially like changing your “panties/undies” in public. No one is going to do that even if the place is empty “just in case” someone might see. Accessing your very private financial or access information in public is the same thing. No one knows where the hidden cameras are or the hacking data breaches, so just wait till you get home and hopefully there’s no peeping Toms.

#publicwifi, #publicwifisecurity, #emergingmedia, #keylimebrands, #newmarketingtwist, #wvu619

 

Source: Hill, Simon (2015) How Dangerous is Public WiFi We ask An Expert retrieved 11/19/16 from http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/how-dangerous-is-public-wi-fi/

Developing more unlocked mobile phones

This week I had to switch cell phone service for the kids and myself from T-Mobile to AT&T. There just is never an easy way to go about changing service and it will inevitably rob a person of several hours of their life they will never get back. With such a connected world  it troubles me that cell phone providers customize phones to only work with their personal networks, that transferring your number from one carrier to another is so cumbersome and that there is such discrepancies in service from one provider to another. While I am an iPhone fan and probably always will be I do like the theory behind the new Google Pixel phone. Currently Verizon has a lock on selling the phone that’s customized with their service but Google also offers an “unlocked” phone that will work with any network provider. This is something that all phone manufacturers should provide which would extend the life of a phone and make it much easier to transfer service providers.

We have all become so attached to our phones to stay connected, directions, find information, entertainment, the list goes on. The service providers should not keep us captive to their contracts and networks.

#mobilephones, #unlockedphones, #emergingmedia, #keylimebrands, #newmarketingtwist, #wvu619

There’s just marketing

Marketing. It’s all encompassing. What do you think of? Paper ads, magazine, banner ads, column ads, email, mobile, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, social media posts,  interviews (…wait that ought to be PR…).

The creative, messaging and delivery needs to be scalable for today’s various marketing platforms.

Creatively it needs to be scalable in pixels and structure – horizontally and vertically and square.

Messaging it needs to work whether it’s for a billboard or an infomercial.

The delivery needs to be on target creatively and on brand yet still deliver the right messaging.

Regardless it needs to work for all devices. Any digital messaging needs to be responsive to numerous end devices.

The number of mobile devices being used is growing substantially. See below Facebook’s Mobile-only Active Monthly Users. It’s on a steady incline.

fb-actely-mauFigure 1: Monthly Active Mobile Users

Facebook’s mobile growth is due to the fact that Facebook’s application is so mobile friendly.

For applications to succeed they need to include a mobile component as part of the standard marketing framework.

#digitalmarketing, #marketing, #emergingmedia, #keylimebrands, #newmarketingtwist, #wvu619

Source

Over half of Facebook users access the service only on mobile