According to this press release, they’re not in Beijing to count medal tallies, but to capture images showing national pride, fan support, and just overall great photography. They don’t disappoint. My favorite picture so far is this panoramic shot during a gymnastics event. I want that camera.

They also have a section on their kodak.com site dedicated to the Olympic games including, “pictures of the day”, a photo tour of Beijing, behind the scenes, and links to their different Kodak blogs. They even have a cool selection of Olympic party kit templates (PDF).

This may look like a plug for Kodak. We do sell a few Kodak products albeit mostly their photo paper. Well, when manufacturers of products that we sell do cool and innovative things, we like to let people know about it. Plus, it allows us to live the Olympics in a small way even though we’re not there.
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Fellowes has something new and slick going on. They want to promote their antimicrobial products while teaching you how to reduce workplace bacteria, and they created an online campaign for it called The Office Coach.

They have some humorous Webisodes, fun “Coach Advice” you can forward to friends, a free seminar offer, sweepstakes contest to Hawaii in February 2009 (it looks like it’s during the Pro Bowl), and a free cleaning kit promotion for consumers who purchase $100.00 or more of Fellowes antimicrobial products (PDF file – might take a bit longer to load).

We carry plenty of these actually, and here are the items:

Keyboards
FEL9892901 – Basic Keyboard
FEL98915 – Split Design Ergonomic Keyboard
FEL98917 – Combo Cordless Keyboard & Mouse

Mice
FEL98912 – Cordless 5 Button Mouse
FEL98913 – 5 Button Optical Mouse

Mousepads and Wrist Support
FEL5933901 – Basic Mouse Pad (Black)
FEL5933801 – Basic Mouse Pad (Navy Blue)
FEL5934001 – Basic Mouse Pad (Silver)
FEL9175101 – Gel Wrist Supports w/ Mouse Pad (Graphite)
FEL9175401 – Gel Wrist Supports w/ Mouse Pad (Sapphire)
FEL9175301 – Gel Wrist Support (Graphite)
FEL9175601 – Gel Wrist Support (Sapphire)

Help inhibit growth of microbes and bacteria by purchasing these items.

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Having a Facebook page in itself isn’t always breaking news, but they are doing a great job utilizing it to promote their different contests and games while building their brand. As of this writing, they have close to 1,200 fans.

Their latest contest is the Post-it Memory game. The application uses your Facebook friends as characters to memorize along with a couple branded Post-it Notes logos. It’s pretty slick and fun.

Facebook Memory Game

I’m happy to say that my score is really low… which is good because if it was really high I’m probably spending too much time not working instead of marketing our products such as the Post-it Notes that we sell. Nonetheless, kudos to the Post-it Notes team!

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He also got to say NASCAR’s four most famous words.

Since we sell a few of Kodak’s photo products at BuyOnlineNow, it’s always exciting to see manufacturers embrace the social media side of the web. In addition to Kodak having their own YouTube page, they also have their own Flickr photo page, a popular Facebook page, and yep, they’re even up on Twitter with Kodak’s Chief Blogger.

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I thought this was a perfect example on how to use the label maker. At BuyOnlineNow, we always like to see people utilize office products in practical and sometimes very creative ways. It looks like we carry a similar Letra Tag label maker.

Unrelated to cable labeling and what we do or do not sell, this post wouldn’t be complete without a fun and creative YouTube video regarding label makers by Dymo.

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The full story is in the above link, but the award is regarding student desks on wheels, and they plan to hit the market this fall.

Recently, we mentioned that HON brought Rainn Wilson into the 2008 NeoCon World’s Trade Fair and how that was a success. As long as we sell HON furniture at BuyOnlineNow, I’m sure there will be plenty more mentions in the near future.

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Now it’s July, but if you’re close to Easton, PA, the Crayola Factory is letting you celebrate with them on Saturday, July 12. Lots of fun, prizes, ice cream, and juggling entertainment will be present.

Crayola 64 Box

At BuyOnlineNow, we happily carry many Crayola (Binney and Smith) products including the famous Crayola 64-Box set of crayons.

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3M has done a remarkable job embracing social media with a current YouTube promotion going on. It actually started in March, but people can still enter until September 1. Here’s a sampling of their “One Million Users” promotion.

What I really like about this is that they’re able to take a generic product and create a huge amount of buzz about it. Check out their online promotion along with their official rules.

Actually, this isn’t the latest interactive promotion with Post-it Notes®. More on that soon (think Facebook).

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What does this mean for consumers? It shouldn’t actually change anything as they will continue to manufacture quality office products. To quote a quick summary:

FranklinCovey currently intends to utilize the net sale proceeds to repurchase shares of its common stock pursuant to a Dutch auction tender offer, which it anticipates will commence in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008.

On the lighter side, it turns out that Franklin Covey also has the naming rights to Franklin Covey Field in Salt Lake City, which is considered one of the best minor league ballparks in the country. Here’s a user-generated video from a fan showing a player hitting a home run.

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I ran across a YouTube video with Simple Green demonstrating their cleaners at a show. This particular video is from a third party observer and has some background noise as no video appears on presenter Kate Milan’s YouTube user channel. Nonetheless, it’s fun to see cleaners like these demonstrated.

The video is worth it just for the weird, backwards red cap wearing dinosaur mascot 2:05 into the video.

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