“Where black and white has never been so colorful” is a tagline being used by Seaworld and a reference, of course, to its star whale, Shamu. Maybe it’s been used for a while, but I just noticed it the other day in a TV spot. It’s inviting, elegant, evocative and many other adjectives. Lots of copywriters get paid lots of money to write lots of advertising, but it’s not often that so much gets said so simply.

Takeaway for marketers: The best copy is often the simplest … but making it look easy is hard work.

Oops — I should have posted this eMarketer article the day it came out, but it got buried in my emailbox along with 400 or so other messages. It’s a pretty good look at which online marketing tactics do and don’t work.

There’s old news and conventional wisdom (see the takeaway below), but what’s really interesting are the year-to-year shifts: Smart money seems to be moving into SEO as a real tactic with ROI. Meanwhile, looks like rich media is taking a hit.

Takeaway for marketers: Read the article. It’s worth your time. And if you haven’t gotten the message by now: Start off by getting a decent keyword marketing plan implemented, and stay away from third-party email lists.

Buy one thing at Omaha Steaks and you’re likely to get flooded with email and direct mail for the rest of your life. But bide your time: You never know how high the offer may go.

Takeaway for marketers: Just because email is cheap doesn’t mean you don’t want to maintain control over who you’re sending to and when.

The smart people over at the Experiential Marketing Forum recently conducted a survey of International Experiential Marketing Association members in 159 countries. What’s working in the world of experiential marketing? What’s not? How should it affect your marketing plan? Check out the survey results over here.

Takeaway for marketers: Thinking about fielding some street teams? Careful! They have the highest potential to create a negative brand experience. The survey results include several such nuggets of practical wisdom.

One week later, let’s see: GM is retooling their suicide robot ad, gay groups are condemning the Snickers ad and fast food workers are insulted by the Kevin Federline ad for Nationwide.

Yet nobody (relatively speaking) is paying much attention to Prince’s Penis Prank from the halftime show.

In the immortal words of Yakov Smirnoff: What a country!

Takeaway for marketers: In the immortal words of Sigmund Freud: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.