Raise Your Marketing IQRaise Your Marketing IQ

Nielsen has recently reported that 46% of viewers aren’t skipping the commercials on their pre-recorded DVR programs. That number seemed ridiculously high to us, so we’re asking you: Do you watch, skip, or run to the kitchen on commercials?

Photo by Jesse757

In our own home, our DVR allows us to fit in TV watching during our already busy schedules. By eliminating the commercials, we’re able to watch 2 shows in the same time it might take us to watch 1 normally. But maybe your household doesn’t work like that.

Against almost every expectation, nearly half of all people watching delayed shows are still slouching on their couches watching messages about movies, cars and beer. According to Nielsen, 46 percent of viewers 18 to 49 years old for all four networks taken together are watching the commercials during playback, up slightly from last year. Why would people pass on the opportunity to skip through to the next chunk of program content?

So if 46% of you are supposedly watching commercials, we want to know why. Do you enjoy the Free Credit Report song that much? Are you making a quick run to the restroom or maybe to the fridge for snacks? Sound off in the comments!

We have some good news and some bad news.

Let’s start with the bad news. If you’re not a fan of oversharers who update Facebook and Twitter with their potty performances, then you might need to avoid the internet for the last five weeks of the year.

Here’s the good news: if you happen to be one of those bathroom tweeting junkies, Charmin wants to pay you $10,000 to be their bathroom ambassador.

In what sounds like the dirtiest social media marketing campaign ever excreted, Business Courier is reporting that Charmin has announced their “Enjoy the go” campaign; and it’s 100% legit.

Charmin will build temporary branded bathrooms in Times Square, and they want to hire five bloggers to interact and engage with hundreds of thousands of bathroom goers and document the entire experiment for five weeks in exchange for $10,000. We can just smell your horror.

Should you be one of the five participants chosen for the five week bathroom extravaganza, your title will be “Charmin Ambassador.” Your mission will be to work inside the makeshift bathroom site in Times Square and update your own blog, share content on social media sites, and even add your insight and experiences to Charmin’s online properties. As a privileged potty party, you will also need to share, “family-friendly video from the restroom space and surrounding areas.”

While most of us are absolutely horrified by the thought of taking photos and videos of families using Charmin toilet paper while enjoying their go, we’re pretty positive that there are at least five people in the New York area interested in the $10,000 check for compensation. Should that be you, you can audition on November 5 at the New York Hilton Hotel (53rd St. and 6th Ave.) from 10am to 6pm. Just be prepared to answer questions like, “why do you enjoy the go more than anyone else?,” and “what qualifies you to be a bathroom ambassador?.” We’re not joking.

[via CNET]

Image courtesy of iStockphoto, ferrantraite.

Tags: charmin, enjoy the go, social media marketing

It’s not a clever hack any of us want to have to use, but the Art of Manliness blog has a homebrew fix for the next time your restroom trip ends in disaster.

Photo by powerbooktrance.

When a toilet clogs, the first jobs are stopping water from flowing to prevent an overflow and finding a decent plunger. Then again, if you’re visiting a friend’s place and might feel embarrassed returning from the bathroom with such a request, some hot water from a bathroom sink might do the trick. Need more firepower? Add in dishwasher detergent to put things right:

Add a few cups of hot water to the toilet bowl before you start plunging. After you pour the hot water in, let it sit for a few minutes. To put it mildly, the heat helps break the, um, stuff up. This will make unclogging the toilet with the plunger much, much easier. The heat from the hot water can sometimes break up the clog without plunging, so this could be a good tactic to use if you a clog a toilet at a friends house and you don’t want to face the embarrassment of asking for a plunger.

The blog post, sourced from a Roto-Rooter representative, offers more good-to-know tidbits about properly using a (warmed and un-stiffened) plunger and using tools like an auger for the really bad, um, breakdowns. If you’d care to be so discrete as to share your own toilet emergency fixes, we’ll welcome them in the comments.

With flu season approaching—on top of everyday Oh-God-I-don’t-think-he-washed-his-hand-after-using-the-restroom moments—we’re all a bit more wary of germs lately. Keep the nasty illness spreaders away with this DIY hand sanitizer.

Photo by bratha

Why would you want to make your own hand sanitizer when you can pick up a bottle in most stores? Many reasons: It could be cheaper to make in bulk, you get to control the ingredients (which is great for those with allergy issues), and you have the peculiar right to brag about yet another thing you made yourself.

You can earn those eco-friendly DIYer brag rights with instructions from Eco-centric blog, EcoSalon:

In a small bowl, mix ¼ cup each of pure aloe vera gel and grain alcohol with 5 drops of tea tree essential oil. To make it smell less pungent, add 5 drops of your favorite fragrance oil. Using a funnel, pour this blend into a bottle small enough to stash in your purse. (Rinse out an empty tube of makeup or lotion to make use of waste.)

Check out EcoSalon for more info on this DIY hand sanitizer as well as a recipe for a DIY surface disinfectant. And after your hands are reasonably clean: tell us about how you’re keeping the germs at bay (or about how you prefer to tough it out in the battle with them).

Update: As reader anniekate76 points out, hand sanitizers only work if you’ve got high enough alcohol concentration—meaning you may need to up your alcohol proportions for this DIY concoction to really help.