Not sure how I stumbled upon the video below, but I'm happy that I did. If you've seen it on YouTube (and chances are you have, since its received almost 2 million views), you were probably surprised when, at the end of video, it became clear it was an ad for Pantene hair products. They ended the video with their logo and the phrase, "You can shine." Some people left comments about the video stating that while it was great, it had nothing to do with the product because the product itself never actually appeared in the piece. I disagree--it had everything to do with the product.

Pantene wants to tell you about their shampoo by talking "around" it and not "about it," thereby capturing your attention with an authentic message rather than a standard sales pitch or some other regurgitated advertising tactic. Is this just another way to tug at people's heartstrings and make them head straight for Pantene bottles in the shampoo aisle? Well, of course, but the ad also does something that I think is quite clever--it makes you feel inspired by showing you a person overcoming hardship.

The interesting thing about spots like this one for Pantene is that they possess a duality that could be characterized as a blend ofadvertising and also art. Pantene is getting you to think about larger, over-arching themes (overcoming obstacles, victory), much like a film, and draws a connection between those themes and their product.

But the folks at Pantene haven't forgotten to give hair a major role in the piece. The violin player's hair is referenced visually several times throughout the spot, as the young woman is passionately playing the violin, and then again at the end, when she plays for a large crowd with a mane of gleaming, sleek, straight hair.

The bottom line? If every time you see a Pantene bottle you think of overcoming obstacles and believing in yourself, isn't that a victory often more glorious than an ad that has the actual product in it for 10 seconds? I think so.

Check out the video for yourself below and let me know what you think.

Every once in a while, a company comes along that just gets it. They don't just entice you with a flashy website--they actually deliver a quality product at a competitive price, and enhance the customer experience with outstanding support. Recently, I discovered a company called Inkd, which fits that exact description. I was looking for some last-minute graphic design work for a flyer, and Inkd gave me some of the most personalized care I've ever received from an online merchant.

Inkd provides original graphic design templates for flyers, brochures, business cards, and much more. Due to a last-minute change in the scope of a project, one of my clients needed a two-sided flyer designed as soon as possible. Not to worry, Inkd had me covered. They took on the project and turned it around in no time, thanks to super-designer Chelsea and her team. A proof was ready for me in a few hours. Brilliant!

Their site is remarkably easy to use: browse the available templates, pick a great design for your flyer/business card/brochure/etc., and tweak it as necessary (if at all) to make it your own. The whole experience was easy, and whenever I had questions, Chelsea and the Inkd staff where there for me.

Inkd makes it easier for the producers and consumers of design work to connect. Even if you regularly work with a graphic designer, it's possible that they may not accept last-minute projects. Inkd took on my project at a good price and allowed me to finish other work simultaneously. Added bonus? Inkd doesn't use cheesy templates that make you think about dot matrix printers and Betamax machines--all of their designs are fresh, modern, and look 100% custom.

As a business owner, it's a relief to know there are companies like Inkd out there. Their personalized and efficient service has made me a fan!

The benefits of using Inkd:

- Stylish templates for a wide array of projects

- Designs that reflect a more modern aesthetic

- Excellent, personalized customer care

- Quick turnaround

- Fair pricing

Many of you have been asking when the song "Chain Reaction" (from the Grasshopper video I produced) will be available via multiple music sites. Well, some good news: it's finally available for purchase on iTunes (in addition to Amazon and other sites).

Carly Comando created this incredible track, and she was really a pleasure to work with--enthusiastic, poised, and responsive. She composed "Chain Reaction" based on the script I wrote and my sometimes annoyingly specific feedback about the sound I needed for the video. She ended up producing one of the most evocative tracks I've ever heard. It really completes the "Entrepreneurs Can Change the World" video.

Grab the track on iTunes today!

I was looking for some stock music for a project when I stumbled upon StockMusic.Net, which bills itself as having "stock music with an edge." While the tracks are great--I'll definitely be able to find some decent options--the copy describing them is hilarious. Below are some of my favorite entries.

- For a track called, "Party Like It's 2999," one of the most outstanding descriptions:

"Soul-groovin'-get-down-with-yo-funky-self tune. A party tune that makes your body start to twitch. Funk guitar, driving, tight bass and groove with retro synth stylings. Oh yeah, hurt me baby."

- This one may have an enigmatic title, but "House Lz5" has clear inspiration:

"Shakin' your thang at a nightclub while you are away on vacation where nobody you know is watching."

- "Esta La Noche," has this simple (but effective) description:

"There's a fiesta going on all night and you are invited."

- Here's a good one, a track entitled, "Fashion Show." Reading the description, I am suddenly reminded of Bruno.

"Stern faced models strutting their stuff as they stomp down the runway. Fast enough to get their groove on, yet not so fast that they look like speed walkers."

- I think the description for the track, "Mushroom Belly," is the best of all:

"Trippy little song with a futuristic flavor to it. Maybe mushrooms will dance for us in the years to come-this is the song they would dance to."

There you go, folks. If you're looking for the song to play when mushrooms start dancing "for us" in the "years to come," you have your track ready.

Good news! You can finally buy "Chain Reaction," the song Carly Comando created for the Grasshopper video. It's now available for purchase on Amazon and should be up on iTunes soon, too. Carly created the track just for the Grasshopper video using only the script I wrote for inspiration. She is an amazingly talented musician. If you watched a basketball game at all in the last year, you probably heard Carly's song "Everyday" playing in the "NBA, Where Amazing Happens" commercials.

iTunes should have "Chain Reaction" available for purchase on or before June 30th. I'll keep everyone posted on the progress but if you catch it on iTunes before I do, please just post a comment to let me know. Shout out to the wonderful site TuneCore, which made getting the song out there super easy and straight-forward! Thanks, TuneCore!

I posted this on Twitter earlier, but had to share here on my blog, too. Richard Darrell (@minervity on Twitter) has a great post on Bit Rebels with awesome videos that provide some insight into the process of designing a website from scratch. I posted one of the videos below. Thanks, Richard!

They're "just words," right? Wrong. Your website provides a unique opportunity for you to tell your readers exactly why they should buy your product or sign up for your service. If your copy is boring, wordy, or sounds amateur, it's highly unlikely that anyone reading your site will stick around for very long.

So, how do you make your copy work for you? Here are five tips for making sure your content makes the grade.

Treat your homepage like valuable real estate. If it's cluttered with text, or if the text that's there has no discernible value to the reader, you're devaluing your homepage and your product, brand or service as soon as people get to your site. Bottom line: if it's not a major component of your business or service, take it off the homepage.

Don't make the reader work. It's a simple concept, but one that some people fail to grasp: the reader doesn't want to work to find the information they need. Find out what it is that people come to your website for, and then make sure it's easy to find it when they get there.

Invest in good copy. No, I'm not just saying this because I'm the Founder of The Cultivated Word. Good copy--and a good copywriter--will both draw readers to your site by optimizing your content for search engines, and keep them there by making that content easy to read and understand. If you don't have the resources to invest in a copywriter and intend to write the copy yourself, refrain from falling victim to what I call "My Top 5 Copywriting Pet Peeves."

Think about the big picture. When you look at your website copy, check your immediate response. How do you react? If a quick glance produces a response like, "Make it go away!" or if you can't be bothered reading through what you currently have on your site, other people will be just as bored with the copy as you are.

Good copy and design go hand in hand. User interaction research tells us that you've only got a few seconds to convince a visitor to stay on your website. If you've got good copy and a crisp website design, chances are you'll make a positive impression on visitors, and you'll find it's easier to navigate your site, too. Not sure what "decent design" means? Check out Andrew Houle's blog post, "4 Principles of Good Design for Websites."

A copywriter can do wonders with your website in addition to providing content that's attention-getting and sales-oriented. They can also give you a fresh perspective on your company's image and provide helpful feedback about how they interact with your site.

If you're writing copy for your company's website, it's pretty hard to generate objectivity about your copy because you're steeped in your own rhetoric. However, if you must go it alone, don't fall prey to what I call "My Top 5 Copywriting Pet Peeves."

#1 - Your homepage looks like a content bomb went off. Words are everywhere, from the top navigation to way past the fold. Worst of all, you've got to read through everything to figure out where to go next. Instead of stuffing your homepage with keywords, do a little research into SEO, and ask yourself what you would want to see first when you visit your own site. This will give you a clue about what others want to see, too.

#2 - You use tons of exclamation points. Adding multiple exclamation points is unnecessary. Limit yourself to one exclamation point per sentence--if you use more, you run the risk of making your site look like a teenager's text message. And remember, exclamation points are used to call attention to something--if they're everywhere, you'll render important points meaningless.

#3 - You didn't bother reading through your work before publishing it. Big mistake. Even if you think you're perfect, you've got to read through what you've written before you publish it on your site. It's not cute when there's a mistake in your copy, especially when customers are considering buying your product or service. Mistakes make you look sloppy and unprofessional.

#4- You like to use the 'ellipsis', and stick four or five on sentences. Remember the "rule of three" when it comes to the ellipsis (singular) or ellipses (plural), those little dots after words or phrases that signal something has been omitted that the reader can infer. Most of the time, ellipses should only come in sets of three (not four, not ten). Most people writing web copy won't encounter a situation that requires a more complicated use of ellipses, but if you're interested, check this out.

#5 - You don't have any copy on your site. Yes, this is an obvious one, but still worth mentioning since I've seen some sites that attempt to sell a product, but don't provide copy to describe it. If you're going to have a website, you need to be able to update it with content to both help visitors and search engines find your website (for SEO). Don't write very well and have no idea what SEO is? Hire a copywriter. If not, do your best to at least provide simple, error-free information about your product or service.

I don't normally write blog posts about work I've done for specific companies, but I've permission from the wonderful folks at Grasshopper (formerly GotVMail) to write about what they've done because I find it so inspiring.

On Monday, the company that was GotVMail launched a pretty bold campaign to re-brand themselves as Grasshopper. Change isn't always easy, but when there's a great idea behind it, it's a lot easier to galvanize support. That's the case with Grasshopper. While the company has always been a champion of entrepreneurs, the re-branding is all about inspiring entrepreneurs to change the world, and taking innovation to a whole new level. And we could all use some inspiration right now.

I was fortunate to be involved in several aspects of the re-branding but I'm really proud of one piece of work in particular: the company's inspirational video, "A Single Brilliant Idea." Producing and writing the video was amazing because I got to work with two incredibly talented individuals during production, one being Carly Comando, who created the original score. Carly is best known for writing the score for the Noah Kalina "Everyday" viral video and for music she's provided for the NBA's "Where Amazing Happens" campaign. Ben White was the motion designer on the project. I feel so grateful to have found Ben, because he understood what I was going for with the video, and he brought a lot of passion to the project. I feel fortunate to have collaborated with these two creative people.

UPDATE: Many people have been asking for the name of the track Carly created for the Grasshopper video. It's called "Chain Reaction" and it will be available for purchase on iTunes at the end of June or early July.

Without further ado, I'd like to share the video with you:

Growing up just a few minutes outside of New York City, I spent a lot of time venturing into the urban playground just across the Hudson River. Over the years, I navigated between the East and West sides, uptown and downtown, and in college, discovered which diners stayed open late enough to serve French fries at 4 AM. Whenever someone visited and went to "the city" with me, I was the unofficial tour guide of the group, trying to explain the lay of the land to wide-eyed travelers.

Over the years, I became a fan of sketching simple pocket visual aids to help inform visitors about the neighborhoods that comprised the borough of Manhattan (geek alert). They certainly weren't detailed maps--those would've been too overwhelming and were, of course, ubiquitous--but they helped visitors understand the geography of the city at a glance. They were perfect for getting "lost in the city" without really doing so. It made visiting much more manageable.

As a lover of maps, you can imagine my delight when I found Here & There: A Horizonless Projection. They're offering a limited run of gigantic (three feet by two feet), high resolution projections of Manhattan. If you're a geek who enjoys a good map, or if you just want to get a visual sense of Manhattan, this is a truly wonderful thing.