One of the most popular categories on Pinterest is the humor section. Users pin funny memes, stories and pictures from humor websites such as 9gag, buzzfeed, photodump and other like sites. The branded meme is not a new concept but they are increasing in popularity. These days, a meme is an umbrella term for copied and altered tidbits of amusing online content, from animations and photo captions to viral videos that inspire a flood of parodies. Within weeks, most memes fade into oblivion, but those with endurance make the leap to the commercial world. Properly exploited, some memes can bring in anywhere from a few thousand dollars for a single licensed broadcast of a popular video to six figures for an integrated marketing campaign based around a meme. So when I was given the assignment to brand asparagus I immediately thought I would utilize the humor section of Pinterest. But then came the issue, how does one make asparagus funny or relevant in pop culture? I thought I would utilize Buddy the Elf. As some of you may have recognized the title of this blog is from the popular movie. Listen to Buddy and eat your asparagus! Asparagus is awesome!

In November 2012 the creative geniuses over at Pinterest launched a hot new feature, "secret boards!" On Pinterest's official blog, they say, "You can use secret boards to keep track of holiday gifts, plan a special event, or work on a project you aren't yet ready to share with the rest of the world." Like most people when I first heard the news I was elated! Now I could pin all of those guilty pleasures and nobody has to know about it! Single women don't have to feel guilty for creating a wedding board. Users can create gift boards, date idea boards, or a board devoted to your boarder line creepy obsession with Johnny Depp. Yay! Everybody wins. Except, maybe not. On a personal level secret boards are great, awesome even magical! But on a business and professional level secret boards are not the greatest invention since sliced bread especially for retailers, photographers and bloggers. These professionals rely on other people to keep pinning their product. For example I follow American Eagle, I log on to see that they just pinned a new pair of boots they are carrying I like them so I'm going to pin them but instead of pinning them to my "Style" board for everyone that follows my board to see (as well as anyone who clicks on the Women's Fashion tab where my "Style" board could randomly pop up) I instead pin the boots to my secret "gifts" board American Eagle potentially lost 100's if not 1000's of views. The same could be said about photographers who get lots of pins into "Wedding" boards but if people start creating secret "Wedding" boards the amount of times their pictures will get re-pinned will cut down. Also bloggers who talk about DIY and cheap wedding ideas their traffic will slow if people don't keep re-pinning so that their followers will see the link and re-pin again. Secret boards have been out for a couple of months now and I haven't heard any negative feed back about them thus far but I can see this developing into an issue. Luckily each user is only allowed 3 secret boards and it is impossible to make an already created board secret. Also if a user has created a secret board it is possible to make it public later on so when that single girl finds her soul mate she can switch the settings and let the whole world know she's off the market! How do you feel about secret boards? Do you love them or hate them? What are some good uses for secret boards?