End of the Week Humor

Well, it's been quite a week. A little humor for the weekend seems like a good thing, especially since I've been focused a little on surrealism this week in my schoolwork.

Is this great packaging or what? - The Mad Men DVD

Wow, is the package for the Mad Men DVD inspired, or what? The box for season one of the '60s, Madison Avenue-set drama is shaped like a big cigarette lighter.

Since almost every character smoked constantly in keeping with the era, it's a brilliant effort.

Mad Men, like The Shield and Damages, owes a debt to The Sopranos, which opened the door to programs with complex, amoral protagonists.

Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is an ad executive with a troubled present and a mysterious past, and the firm he works for goes through some interesting campaigns in the series subplots, representing such diverse clients as Nixon and Lucky Strike.

Give it a look if it sounds interesting.

2008: The Virgo Outlook

Depending on who you ask, 2008 is either going to suck or be fabulous for Virgos, of which I am one. Good thing horoscopes are all based on the notion that the heavenly bodies revolve around the Earth, right?

OK, I'm a little nervous.

The stars as they align for eAstrolog.com suggest I might have a stormy January with my boss. We've been on pretty easy seas of late. He didn't even flinch when I floated the idea of advertising a serious medical conference with a parody of the Operation Game. It got shot down by the internal client.

He's even over the Sinus Envy incident, so I hope there are not, uh, creative differences on the horizon.

Uranus is in the HOUSE!
eAstrolog suggests that what with Uranus in my house of marriage I need to tread lightly on that front, and Pluto could really exacerbate the situation. Does it matter that it's not a planet any more?

Iloveindia.com forecasts a friendlier 2008 for we Virgos and notes, we are not very talkative and stand away from the crowd. That seems to fit me about like my INFJ profile from the nice folks at Myers-Briggs.

ILI's forecast continues: " Virgos live in the real world. They neither day­dream, nor wish on stars." Gotta love that irony! ;-)

Maybe given eAstrolog's prediction of marriage tumult I should go against ILI's suggestion of Virgo's: "You won't see them shouting 'I Love You' from the rooftop.'" Christine might appreciate that gesture. She's been asking for an inspection of the gutters anyway, so I'll have the ladder out soon.

Maybe Astrology.com's prediction is the one I should go with: "The focus for Virgo, this year, is on developing creative endeavors to better serve mankind as a whole. "

I can get behind that, and their suggestion that I'll flourish with beauty and creativity.

Maybe you chart your course not by the influence of the stars but by the application of your own imagination and determination.

I think that's how I'll focus on 2008 since I can't really control which house Jupiter is in or anything.

(Clipart from: Astrology Weekly)

Aliens in the Ad World

My boss has been leading an e-mail discussion at work about the use of Ripley-menacing style aliens in New Mexico tourism ads. It's sort of like the Geiko cavemen in that they're placed in domestic situations, discussing New Mexico as a great getaway.



It kind of makes sense. Roswell, NM, -- aliens.

The ads have generated some controversy, however. Some have claimed, according to what my boss read, that the aliens don't reach the desired older and wealthy demographic.

Older, wealthy people are noted for not having a sense of humor and for not detecting humorous subtleties, after all.

Sarcasm doesn't really come off as well without inflection, does it? Kidding!

The proof, I suppose, will be in the tourism measurements.

I certainly get the message from the commercials and I think I will go to New Mexico and wait for Predators to show up, too. That's going to be a good fight.

The Backburner Category

The ad club from back home used to have a backburner category. That was the slot for entries that never saw the light of day for one reason or another. Read that - client didn't get it.

One of my favorites was for a barbecue place. It was shot like a Clint Eastwood Western and the restaurant's beef plates managed to distract gunmen from a showdown.

Flash to the present
I managed to create a backburner print ad this week. We have a doctor who's going to do a free forum on sinus problems.

Now, I should tell you our last free forum was about the connection between neurology and urology problems. We used a picture of a doctor's gloved hands pointing at--now old fashioned-- X-ray film of a brain. The headline was "Problems that start here may trickle down."

Ran in the paper, brought in a crowd. Didn't hear anything negative.

So, I'm thinking of clever lines and I'm making notes of things associated with sinuses and everything and I came up with -- "Do you suffer from Sinus Envy?" as the headline.

Free Sinus Forum, time date.

Jealous of those friends who don't get a runny nose when the flowers are in bloom? Come to our forum to learn about symptom relief.

The artist designed it, and I showed it around. Got some "It's cute" and "Sounds OK" remarks.

The Acid Test
Then I showed Christine who works down the hall. I really probably should have photographed the expression with my cell phone.

"You can't run that."

"Why not?"

"It's offensive to women."

"I showed it to a lot of women. They said it was cute."

"Did they know what it means?"

"I didn't, uh, get clarification on that."

My boss was at a meeting. I waited for him to get back.

"Remember the ad about the urology forum?"

"Yeah, it worked pretty well."

I held up the ad proof. "What do you think of this one?"

He came around a few seconds later when I used the ad proof to fan his face.

"You can't run that. Not here. Maybe in San Francisco."

"I showed it to a lot of people. They thought it was OK."

"Did they know what it means?"

"I'm sure they've heard of Freud."

"Yeah, why don't you go back to the drawing board? It's clever, but it's going to get us all fired."

Sometimes it does help to run an idea by other people.

Our ad will read - "Do you suffer from Nose Woes?" Rhyming dictionaries can come in handy.

But if our ad club had a backburner category. ;-)

Whysoserious.com - Out the corner of my eye

I don't have anyone on the ground at Comicscom in San Diego, but from the corner of my eye I'm watching the activity on whysoserious.com, a promo for the new Batman Movie.

An "I Want You" poster featuring Heath Ledger as the Joker appeared this morning with cooridnates of where to go for a big henchperson recruitment gathering.

Commonreview.com is steadily solving and posting clues and they do have people on the ground.

Is this viral marketing or something beyond? Any way you slice it, it's COOL!

(No rights to image implied.)

Zombie Orville Bites the Big Kernel

Advertising Age is reporting that zombie Orville Redenbacher creators Crispin Porter & Bogusky are being replaced by ConAgra Foods, holders of the Redenbacher brand.

I mentioned here a while back that the zombie Orville commercials struck me as creepy and not in a good way. Who wants their popcorn seasoned with formaldehyde after all?

I guess there are good and bad ways you can use zombies.

Zombie fighting associated with protective software = good.

Zombies associated with food = bad.

Perhaps most of all the Orville ads failed because the reanimation was off-putting. Maybe a better realized "reanimation" would have struck me as more appetizing.

But zombie Orville had an eerie pallor and a strangeness of movement we didn't get when real footage of Fred Astair or John Wayne was used in the past.

Maybe we have to wait a while for technique to catch up with idea.

Or maybe it's time to bury the dead.

Sacking Nike

Somehow I suspect, and come on if you're awake, you suspect too that Nike® 's decision to hold off on their newest Michael Vick shoe had less to do with due process and waiting for the court to decide the Atlanta Falcons quarterback's guilt or innocence on dogfighting charges than it did with corporate profits.

Their decision came, no doubt, after the statisticians in strategic planning counted their magic beans and decided they weren't gaining as much in street-cred as they were losing in customer good will.

This is a company after all that featured a brief hint of dog fighting in a commercial a few years ago just to show how tough they are. In a terse e-mail to Gwen Knapp of the San Francisco Chronicle Nike stated they pulled it only because it ran its course, not because animal welfare groups voiced dismay. Ms. Knapp noted:

"At a time when one of its star endorsers is accused of viciously abusing animals for thrills and profit, Nike probably should have hinted at some level of sensitivity on the subject. "

The response at the very least makes their statement that "we consider any cruelty to animals inhumane and abhorrent" seem disingenuous.

Regardless of what courts rule on Vick's guilt or innocence, Nike has shown just how skewed its moral center is and how reprehensible its marketing and advertising can be.

They are happy to be associated with exploitation of the most vile and inhumane kind if it's making them look like tough guys.

I bought new running shoes a while back and they weren't Nike's, though I'd had Nike cross trainers for a while. The ASICS® running shoes just felt more comfortable in the walking-around-the-athletic-store test.

Brand will play a bigger role for me in the future. I'm sacking Nike. I'm kicking Nike, that is I ain't buying them no more.

I'm not their target audience--I'm gradually aging out of just about every marketer's desirable range except maybe Metamucil's--but perhaps I'm not the only one who'll be giving my $80 to someone else the next time I'm in the market for an athletic shoe.

Michael Vick's guilt or innocence is indeed for the court's to decide, the presumption of innocence his rightful due, but Nike's trial is in the court of public opinion and it's time to bang the gavel and render the verdict.

In my mind as a consumer, they're convicted.

Addendum (7/27/07)

Los Angeles Times Nike Sacks Vick

Looking into the Afterworld

The word up is that Afterworld is looking like a hot property to advertisers seeking to penetrate the mobile market. (It's in Advertising Age but this blog requires no registration.)


If the adman protagonist of the piece--reminiscet of Cell and The Stand--should pop a top on your favorite softdrink somewhere in the 130-or-so minute-or-so episodes from the creator of the TV show "Dark Skies," well that would be fab.

That sounds like a good bet because it's been downloaded many times so far on You Tube and subscriptions are coming. Will the iPod and iPhone be among them? Would I put it on the SidPod? Not sure.

I'm not certain if I'm willing to pay, but the story so far on You Tube is stylish, cynical and fresh in spite of King echoes.

The hero is from Seattle, but he's in New York when Captain Trips--sorry--when disaster strikes and he has to traverse a post-apocalyptic America to get home.

Would I stay with it for 130 episodes? Will it develop a cult following like the "footage" in William Gibson's Pattern Recognition which anticipated You Tubesque guerilla video?

Time will tell. In the meantime the music video above offers a taste of what's to come.

Addendum
Crown from Bud.TV was nice enough to drop by and remind me in comments that Afterworld is available on the Bud site as well. They have available episodes in a convenient menu scroll. There's a brief registration. It's that Bud, so it is an adult beverage.

Was it something I said to the headhunter?

Sometimes I wonder if the laments about the lack of talent in the advertising and marketing worlds are accurate.

Not long ago, I discovered one of several e-mails from a recruiter hidden away in my web-based e-mail inbox. They had been there a while because they weren't flowing into my "new mail" display. Oops.

BIG, REALLY BIG
If you look at their website, they're a BIG talent recruiter. Possibly true, so I e-mailed back on the most recent query with a polite response.

I wasn't rabid about the position, but I thought I'd at least express interest to make contact, make nice, get the ol' foot in the door with the headhunters just in case they're sitting on my dream job, don't know you?

Best laid plans.

"Hi, how do you do, can you tell me more about the position...," sez I.

Then they start mildly insulting me:

...

this position has some requirements that you have
not yet had experience in.... Please stay tuned for a
more jr. position that will allow you to
continue to build on the career path you have
already embarked on.

...

Now--the creative syntax aside--to their credit they'd picked up on a copywriting-oriented resume, one that didn't focus as much on the web side of my day job slash. And I know the intent was not to insult, but I sent back an e-mail to the effect that I've been in the workforce a few years now, and I'm not really interested in a "junior" position.

They caved and sent back a job description that pretty much could be my resume. BA degree, writing, at least 5 years job experience...

Competent in the usual suspects HTML, Javascript, Flash, web forums, blogs ;-) etc. etc.

You know and I know the company was throwing everything but the kitchen sink in there. Bottom line - one web monkey to run the show.

I couldn't say yes to Vignette, but I'm familiar with site management software in general. I'm confident I could figure it out.

I couldn't say yes to Cold Fusion either, but again, with a gun to my head and a manual... If the monkey can write and run web software, the monkey can be trained to operate other machinery and create web forms accordingly. Sometimes the reverse is not always true.

Put 'er in there
The catch: the company was basically involved in an enterprise slightly more boring than, well, everything. Hence the need for a recruiter, methinks.

I e-mailed back.

"Thank you, but the position watching paint dry (a paraphrase) does not appear challenging. I do have the skillset mentioned in the description, however. Perhaps you were looking at a copywriting-focused resume. Please blah, blah blah ."

That's the last I've heard from them, and prior to that several e-mails had circulated into my box, so I'm thinking assertive was one thing not in the qualification mix.

Looking for talent? Maybe talent's not absent. Maybe talent just made your headhunter mad.

Zombie Ads

Microsoft has combined two things I like--zombies and cool advertising---in a new spot appearing in tech magazines.

Touting Microsoft Forefront® enterprise security software , the ad features a guy clearly from the IT department facing down a hoard of undead attackers. (I'm no bigger fan of Microsoft than the next guy, but I do appreciate creativity.)

The message notes it's easy to stop zombies, lumbering, brainless oafs that they are, and even easier to prevent malware on a network with Forefront.

It's a great approach for the message's audience.

No doubt inspired by The Zombie Survival Guide, World War Z and the "Living Dead" franchise, the ad points to a supporting website, easyeasier.com.

It's a microsite requiring a fast connection, and one flaw I see is that there's not a clever time-killing icon to occupy you during the download.

Otherwise the website provides lots of fun as it dramatizes and expounds upon the zombie-fighting pointers from the ad such as "4. Find a weapon, any weapon." The funny bits culminate with a sales pitch about Forefront and options for additional info on the software.

I've only seen the zombie print ad but the site features other enemies, so I suspect more ads with a James Bond-style spy, a gray alien and a Ninja will be coming in future issues of Network World.

That I shall look forward to.

Addendum
An omission: I should have noted earlier that the new Forefront campaign was created by Mccann Worldgroup.


(No rights to image implied.)

Zombie Orville

Am the only one a little creeped out by the zombie Orville Redenbacher in the new commercials?

I don't know that a reanimated Orville--even with an iPod--really makes me want popcorn. It's kind of like a TV ad written by a horror writer.

The man passed away in 1995. My vote is let him rest and find a living spokesperson to hawk the corn.

Addendum
I forgot to check You Tube for a version of the ad, but the Rain of Thought blog has a Google video version if you haven't seen just how strange the spot is, you can watch there. Jason, author of that blog seems to agree with my POV on the matter.

Dude, you're burnin' a Marketing Opportunity

Dell issued a press release the other day announcing that it would recall 35,000 notebook batteries that miiiiiiiiight "pose a fire risk."

They made the annoucement in conjunction with the U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission. Apparently a couple of coffee tables or desks have been damanged but no laps to date.

The spin
I think there could be a spin on the whole situation that could be turned into marketing opportunities:

1. Harness the technology - make the batteries flash on demand instead of their own whim.

2. Annouce that in the event of loss or theft the internal self-destruct mechanism can be activated to avoid the compromise of sensitive data on your hard drive i.e. grocery lists, bad poetry, digital photos of your thumb.

It could also make for a real nasty surprise for anyone who swipes your computer.